“The Loan: good for 100 marks!” Look at him! He is the favoured of
the Earth, lives in Germany, where Kultur is peerless, and education
complete (even tho’ the man may become a martyr of method). War comes!
and he is seen, as an almond tree in blossom his years tell, when lo!
a War Loan is raised with real Helfferichian candour, and Michael has
just stepped out of the Darlehnskasse, at Oberwesel-on-the-Rhine, or
other seat of Kultur and War Loan finance. Are visions about? said
an American humorist now gone to the Shades; and Michael, Loan note
in hand, eyes reversed, after a visit to two or three offices, wants
to know, and wonders whether this note can be regarded as “hab und
gut,” and if so, good for how much? Is it a wonder that an artist in a
Neutral Country should depict German affairs as in this condition, and
business done in this manner? Michael is puzzled; and in the language
of the Old Kent Road, “’e dunno where ’e are!” He is puzzled, and not
without cause.
All who have followed Germany’s financing of the War share Michael’s
perplexity. Brag is a good dog: but it does not do as a foundation for
credit. Gold at Spandau was trumpeted for years as a “war chest”; but
when the “best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley,” especially
when a war does not end, as it should, after a jolly march to Paris
in six weeks, through a violated and plundered Belgium, then comes
the rub--and the paper which puzzles Michael. A German, possibly Dr.
Helfferich, the German Finance Minister, may believe, and some do
believe, that it does not matter how much “paper,” in currency notes, a
State, or even a Bank, may issue. The more experienced commercial and
banking concerns of the world insist upon a visible material, as well
as the personal security, to which the German is prone. The round-about
method of issuing German War Loans unquestionably puzzles Michael; but
will not impose on the world outside.
Let it be marked also, that German credit methods have been, in part,
the proximate cause of this War; a system of credit-trading may last
for some years only to threaten disaster and general ruin. Now, it is
“neck or nothing”; Michael goes the round of the Loan offices, and
behold him! Germany herself fears a crash in credit, and even the
German Michael feels that it is impending. Already the mark exchanges
over 30 below par.