English-speaking Teuton is calculated to
throw the most vigilant Anglo-Saxon intelligence off its guard. We
have no psychological X-rays by which to pierce the peculiar racial
vesture in which the German soul is shrouded, nor are we endowed with
the gift of patient observation which might enable us to extract those
rays from facts. And so we stumble along, dealing with an imaginary
people whom we ourselves have created after our own image and
likeness, falling into fatal blunders and recommencing anew.

It is true that the mark has fallen, and that the German financial
fabric is in a parlous condition. But that fabric is kept from
crumbling away by the war, just as the Egyptian papyrus is preserved
so long as it does not come into contact with the air. Moreover,
common prudence should impel us to find out at what a cost to
ourselves we have reduced the value of the mark. If financial
exhaustion be among the ways in which one group of belligerents may be
made to succumb, it is wise to ask whether it is the States which have
to pay gold for their huge requirements or those which can get almost
everything they need for paper that are likely to succumb first.

The question is relevant, yet, because it has not been moved into the
foreground of discussion, there are few people who ponder on it.

Personally, I am convinced that impecuniosity and loss of credit will
never bring the Germans to their knees.

Great Britain has achieved wonders in the financial sphere during this
war, as the Allies and certain neutrals can testify. Our budgets are
monuments of the nation's spirit of self-sacrifice. But we have not
come scathless out of the ordeal. And besides our inevitable losses we
are suffering from criminal waste. No other country is so thriftless
as ours. In this respect we are a byword among the peoples of the
world. But we give no thought to the consequences. Yet the yearly
outlay on the one hand and the means of meeting it on the other hand
are calculable, and it would be well if those who rely upon Germany's
financial prostration would carefully reckon up and compare the two,
were it only for the sake of the sobering effect. On this aspect of
the problem it is needless to dwell further. It will compel close and
painful attention before the end of the campaign.

Another point to which inadequate heed has been paid, is the lack of
working men. This dearth of labour is not felt in Germany or Austria,
because they have t