I am not a sufficient expert to pronounce a definite opinion on the commercial and financial side of the question.  In the sphere of commercial policy especially I cannot even suggest the way in which the desired end can be obtained.  Joint action on the part of the Government and the great import houses would seem to be indicated.  As regards finance, speaking again from a purely unprofessional standpoint, one may go so far as to say that it is not only essential to keep the national household in order, but to maintain the credit of the State, so that, on the outbreak of war, it may be possible to raise the vast sums of money required for carrying it on without too onerous conditions.

The credit of State depends essentially on a regulated financial economy, which insures that the current outgoings are covered by the current incomings.  Other factors are the national wealth, the indebtedness of the State, and, lastly, the confidence in its productive and military capabilities.

As regards the first point, I have already pointed out that in a great civilized World State the balancing of the accounts must never be brought about in the petty-State fashion by striking out expenditure for necessary requirements, more especially expenditure on the military forces, whose maintenance forms the foundation of a satisfactory general progress.  The incomings must, on the contrary, be raised in proportion to the real needs.  But, especially in a State which is so wholly based on war as the German Empire, the old manly principle of keeping all our forces on the stretch must never be abandoned out of deference to the effeminate philosophy of the day.  Fichte taught us that there is only one virtue—­to forget the claims of one’s personality; and only one vice—­to think of self.  Ultimately the State is the transmitter of all culture, and is therefore entitled to claim all the powers of the individual for itself.[A] These ideas, which led us out of the deepest gloom to the sunlit heights of success, must remain our pole-star at an epoch which in many respects can be compared with the opening years of the last century.  The peace-loving contentment which then prevailed in Prussia, as if the age of everlasting peace had come, still sways large sections of our people, and exerts an appreciable influence on the Government.

Among that peaceful nation “which behind the rampart of its line of demarcation observed with philosophic calm how two mighty nations contested the sole possession of the world,” nobody gave any thought to the great change of times.  In the same way many Germans to-day look contentedly and philosophically at the partition of the world, and shut their eyes to the rushing stream of world-history and the great duties imposed upon us by it.  Even to-day, as then, the same “super-terrestrial pride, the same super-clever irresolution” spreads among us “which in our history follows with uncanny regularity the great epochs of audacity and energy."[B]