e be the
slightest risk of the German paper money depreciating a single piastre
in value? That sounded very good sense to Turkey, who was equally
convinced that she would be on the victorious side (else she would not
have joined it), and down went the loan with a pleasant sensation of
sweetness. A second loan was easily induced by the failure of the
Dardanelles expedition, and about then the 'ignorant' Turkish peasant
began to wonder whether the paper was quite as valuable as gold, and to
prefer gold or even the ordinary silver piastre to its German
equivalent. To counteract that, as we have seen, a law was passed making
it criminal to hoard gold, and, to complete the ruin, the silver piastre
was called in, and a nickel token was substituted.... We can but bow our
heads in reverence of the thoroughness of German swindling.

Now Turkey is completely bankrupt, and we must ask ourselves why Germany
ever bargained for the repayment in gold, after the war, of the millions
she had lent the Turks in paper, if she knew that Turkey could never
repay her. True, the loans had only cost her the paper the notes were
printed on, so that in no case could she prove a loser, but how could
she be a gainer? The answer to that question shouts at us from every
acre of Turkish soil. The immense undeveloped riches of Turkey supply
the answer. Some indeed are already being developed, and the labour and
most of the materials have been paid for by the German paper notes.
There are the irrigation works at Adana, there is the beet-sugar
industry at Konia, the irrigation works in the Makischelin Valley, the
mineral concessions of the Bagdad Railway, the Haidar Pasha Harbour
concessions, the afforestation scheme near Constantinople, the cotton
industry in Anatolia--there is no end to them. Turkey may not be able to
pay in cash, but over all these concessions already working, and over a
hundred more, of which the concessions have been granted, Germany has a
complete hold, and her victim will pay in minerals and cotton and sugar
and corn. She will pay over and over and over again, as none who have
the smallest knowledge of Kultur-finance can possibly doubt. She is
bled white already, and for the rest of time bloodless and white will
she remain. Only one event can possibly avert her fate, and that is the
victory of the Allies.

We have been so bold as to assume that this is not an impossible
contingency, and on that assumption there is a brighter futu