they would necessarily be in our day. In 1872, Germany was self-sufficing, little dependent upon credit; to-day undisturbed credit in Europe is the very life-blood of her industry; it is, in fact, the very food of her people, as the events of 1911 have sufficiently proved.
It is not generally realized how abundantly the whole history of the German indemnity bears out Sir Robert Giffen's warning; how this flood of gold turned indeed to dust and ashes as far as the German nation is concerned.
First, anyone familiar with financial problems might have expected that the receipt of so large a sum of money by Germany would cause prices to rise and so