and the
unlimited exercise of their power. Now they tremble before every
insult;--call them pro-Germans, international financiers, or profiteers,
and they will give you any ransom you choose to ask not to speak of them
so harshly. They allow themselves to be ruined and altogether undone by
their own instruments, governments of their own making, and a press of
which they are the proprietors. Perhaps it is historically true that no
order of society ever perishes save by its own hand. In the complexer
world of Western Europe the Immanent Will may achieve its ends more
subtly and bring in the revolution no less inevitably through a Klotz or
a George than by the intellectualisms, too ruthless and self-conscious
for us, of the bloodthirsty philosophers of Russia.

The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to
extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or
too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the
resources they required, have printed notes for the balance. In Russia
and Austria-Hungary this process has reached a point where for the
purposes of foreign trade the currency is practically valueless. The
Polish mark can be bought for about three cents and the Austrian crown
for less than two cents, but they cannot be sold at all. The German mark
is worth less than four cents on the exchanges. In most of the other
countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe the real position is
nearly as bad. The currency of Italy has fallen to little more than a
halt of its nominal value in spite of its being still subject to some
degree of regulation; French currency maintains an uncertain market; and
even sterling is seriously diminished in present value and impaired in
its future prospects.

But while these currencies enjoy a precarious value abroad, they have
never entirely lost, not even in Russia, their purchasing power at home.
A sentiment of trust in the legal money of the State is so deeply
implanted in the citizens of all countries that they cannot but believe
that some day this money must recover a part at least of its former
value. To their minds it appears that value is inherent in money as
such, and they do not apprehend that the real wealth, which this money
might have stood for, has been dissipated once and for all. This
sentiment is supported by the various legal regulations with which the
Governments endeavor to control internal prices, and so to preserve som