Membership on the Stock Exchange is not continuous as in this country,
and at the March elections in 1915 there will be a dropping out of
German names.




CHAPTER XII

ENGLISH WAR FINANCE

Protecting Trade and the Trader--How German Banks Paid--The English
Loan--England's Wealth--The Income Tax--More Taxes.


A giant Atlas bearing the civilized world on its financial shoulders
has arisen between the North and the Irish seas. That is the picture
that stands at the opening of 1915, where before Germany had endeavored
to stamp the label "Perfidious and degraded nation of shopkeepers."

Only the pencil of a Doré could sketch this giant and put him in
figures of proper relief as, aroused from his pastime of trade and the
acquisition of shillings, he summons with one hand the resources of the
empire and with the other passes them out to needy warring nations,
taking care all the while that the necessary dealing of exchange and
commerce have the least possible disturbance.

Kitchener says the war may last for two years, but he is making
preparations for three years, and must do this job so thoroughly that
no repetition will be required.