ainst effective co-operation among the Allies
in war time will make themselves felt with increased force during the
economic struggle which will then begin.

No mere tariff arrangement, but only a genuine league between all the
west European Powers and the British Empire, supplemented by a customs
union between them and the other Allies of the Entente, will then
avail to ward off the new danger and establish some rough approach to
the equilibrium which the present conflict has overthrown. The future
destinies of Europe, as far as one may conjecture from the data
available to-day, will depend largely on the insight of the Entente
nations and their readiness to subordinate national aims and interests
to those of the larger unit which will be the inevitable product of
the new order of things.

The ideal type of the industrial bank having been thus wrought out,
the Germans, whom a thoroughly commercial education had qualified for
the work, carried on vast operations with a degree of boldness which
was matched only by the thoroughness of their precautions. They
advanced money with a readiness and an open-handedness which the West
European financier set down as sheer folly, but which was the outcome
of close study and careful deliberation. They began by acquainting
themselves with the solvency of their clients, with the nature of the
transactions which these were carrying on, with their business methods
and individual abilities, and to the results of this preliminary
examination they adjusted the extent of their financial assistance.
They had secret inquiry offices to keep them constantly informed of
the condition of the various firms and individuals, and when in doubt
they demanded an insight into the books of the company which was
seldom denied them. The Spanish Inquisition was but a clumsy agency in
comparison with the perfect system evolved by these German banks,
which could at any given moment sum up the prospects as well as the
actual situation of each of their customers. It was this comprehensive
survey which warranted some of the large advances they made to
seemingly insolvent firms which afterwards grew to be the most
prosperous in the Fatherland.

The methods thus practised at home were adhered to in all those
foreign countries which the German financier, manufacturer or trader
selected for his field of operations. A bank would be opened in the
foreign capital with money advanced mainly by one of the six great
f