of the war, and a good deal more, was going to be handed over to her
in the shape of indemnities by her vanquished enemies. This terrible
miscalculation on her part led her to set a very bad example to the
warring Powers, and when protests are made in this country concerning
the low proportion of the war's costs that is being met out of
taxation it is easy for the official apologist to answer, "See how
much more we are doing than Germany." It is easy, but it is not a good
answer. Germany had no financial prestige to maintain; the money that
Germany is raising for financing the war is raised almost entirely
at home, and she rejoices in a population so entirely tame under a
dominant caste that it would very likely be quite easy for her, when,
the war is over, to cancel a large part of the debt by some process of
financial jugglery, and to induce her tame and deluded creditors to
believe that they have been quite handsomely treated.

Here, however, in England, we have a financial prestige which is based
upon financial leadership of more than a century. We have also raised
a large part of the money we have used for the prosecution of the
war by borrowing abroad, and so we have to be specially careful in
husbanding that credit, which is so strong a weapon on the side of
liberty and justice. And, further, we have a public which thinks for
itself, and will be highly sceptical, and is already inclined to be
sceptical, concerning the manner in which the Government may treat the
national creditors. Its tendency to think for itself in matters of
finance is accompanied by very gross ignorance, which very often
induces it to think quite wrongly; and when we find it necessary for
the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make it clear at a succession of
public meetings that those who subscribe to War Loans need have no
fear that their property in them will be treated worse than any other
kinds of property, we see what evil results the process of too much