n 1514.

[Sidenote: Change from poverty to affluence emphasized]

Of course such a statement cannot pretend to anything like exactitude;
the mathematical figure is a mere figure of speech; it is intended only
to emphasize the fact that one of the most momentous changes during the
last four centuries has been that from poverty to affluence. That the
statement, surprising as it may seem, is no exaggeration, may be borne
out by a few comparisons.

[Sidenote: War a test of a nation's financial strength]

One of the tests of a nation's financial strength is that of war.
Francis I in time of war mustered at most an army of 100,000, and he
reached this figure, or perhaps slightly exceeded it, only once during
his reign, in the years 1536-7. This is only half the number of
soldiers, proportionately to the population, that France maintained in
time of peace at the opening of the twentieth century. And for more
than four years, at a time when war was infinitely more expensive than
it was when Pavia was fought, France kept in the field about an even
five millions of men, more than an eighth of her population instead of
about one one-hundred-and-fiftieth. Similar figures could be given for
Germany and England. It is true that the power of {460} modern states
is multiplied by their greater facilities for borrowing, but with all
allowances the contrast suggests an enormous difference of wealth.

[Sidenote: Labor power of the world]

Take, as a standard of comparison, the labor power of the world. In
1918 the United States alone produced 685,000,000 tons of coal. Each
ton burned gives almost as much power as is expended by two laborers
working for a whole year. Thus the United States from its coal only
had command of the equivalent of the labor of 1,370,000,000 men, or
more than thrice the adult male labor power of the whole world; more
than fifty times the whole labor power of sixteenth-century Europe.
This does not take account of the fact that labor is far more
productive now than then, even without steam. The comparison is
instructive because the population of the United States in 1910 was
about equal to that of the whole of Europe in 1600.

The same impression would be given by a comparison of the production of
any other standard product. More gold was produced in the year 1915
than the whole stock of gold in the world in 1550, perhaps in 1600.
More wheat is produced annually in Minnesota than the granaries of th