percent more was gone before January 1, 1915. This is also indicated by
the expansion of her paper money and her efforts to maintain the gold
basis under that paper.

As this is regarded as a life-and-death struggle for Germany, the jewelry
in the Empire must go into the melting-pot.

I can well credit the reports of copper household utensils and building
materials going into the melting-pot for the copper of war.

And of rubber, for which there is no substitute, I hear that above three
dollars a pound is being bid in Germany, or about four times the price in
the United States.

Still, the scarcity of gold, copper, gasolene, or rubber, or all
combined, might not force Germany to sue for peace.

What I give a final verdict on is the tremendous human sacrifice that is
exhausting both Austria and Germany. I do say from good sources that in
the first twenty weeks of the war the German casualties--wounded,
prisoners, missing, and killed--were above 1,700,000, while Austrian
casualties are now approaching a million and a half.

In the first six months of the year Germany and Austria will have
suffered not less than three million casualties. Of course, more than
half these people are wounded, who may go back to the firing line. But
the three hundred thousand and more dead will never go back; and many
vitally wounded and many cripples will be hereafter useless in peace or
war; and the prisoners that are exchanged with France through Geneva are
under pledge and mutual government agreement not to take up arms again.