was shut up in home or foreign ports.  There were said to be 1,500 idle ships in Hamburg alone.  Few goods could be exported.  Gold was refused for export, of course.  A serious liquidation in foreign securities had been going on long before the war.  Some foreign securities must have still remained.  However that may be, a claim to funds in Germany (i.e., a bill drawn on Germany) was not redeemable in gold, and it fell in price.  In normal times a bill could not fall below the shipping point in gold, (par with us for 4 marks is 95-1/4 cents in gold;) but, since gold could not be sent, exchange on Germany could fall to any figure, set only by a declining demand.  Already bills on Germany have been quoted in New York at 82, showing a depreciation of German money in the international field of about 13 per cent.  Likewise, as early as the first week of September, the Reichsbank notes were reported at a discount of 20 per cent., and as practically non-negotiable in a neighboring country like Holland.

The inevitable consequence of a depreciated currency must be a rise of prices, usually greater than the actual percentage of depreciation.  To meet this situation there came a device possible in no other commercial country.  The Government fixed prices at which goods could be sold.  This mediaeval device could be enforced only in a land where such State interference had been habitual, and, of course, could give to the notes the fictitious purchasing power only inside the country.  After the Christian Science fashion, one had only to believe the notes were of value to make them so; but in the cold world outside German jurisdiction their value would be gauged by the chances of getting gold for them.  Here, then, we find Germany in all the mazes of our ancient “greenbackism,” but still in possession of a large stock of gold.  As soon as the war ends she may be able to return to gold payments at an early date—­very much as did France after the ordeal of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871.

In the present war conditions, however, largely cut off from other countries, (except some small trade with Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and the like,) all ordinary relations which would influence German credit and industry must be counted out.  There is no comparison of her prices and money with those of other countries in a free market, or with even a limited transportation of exports and imports.  All commercial measurements are suspended for the time.  Trade and credit are holding their breath.  How long can they do it?  Germany may have food enough; but how long can the stoppage of industry go on?

Moreover, attention must be called to one momentous thing.  We are seeing today, under military law, the greatest experiment in socialism ever witnessed.  All wealth, income, industry, capital, and labor are in the direct control and use of a military State.  Food, everything, may be taken and distributed in common.  I think never before in history have we had such a gigantic, full-fledged illustration of socialism in actual operation.