could, bankrupting themselves at intervals and sometimes
wrecking their nations. Kings have always been uncertain pay.
Not many loaned money to them willingly and only in small
amounts and at usurious rates of interest. To float a
"patriotic loan," it was often necessary to make use of the
prison or the rack. With the advent of parliaments and chambers
of deputies, the credit of nations improved and it became easy
to borrow money. There was developed a special class of
financiers, the Rothschilds at their head, pawnbrokers rather
than bankers, men able and willing to take a whole nation into
pawn. And with the advent of great loans, as Goldwin Smith
wisely observed, "there was removed the last check on war."

With better social and business adjustments, and especially
with the progress of railways and steam navigation with other
applications of science to personal and national interests, the
process of borrowing became easier, as also the payment of
interest on which borrowing depends. Hence more borrowing,
always the easiest solution of any financial complication or
embarrassment. Through the substitution of regular methods of
taxation for the collection of tribute, the nations became
solidified. Only a solidified nation can borrow money. The
loose and lawless regions called Kingdoms and Empires under
feudalism were not nations at all. A nation is a region in
which the people are normally at peace among themselves. In
civil war, a nation's existence may be dissolved.

In all the ages war costs all that it can. All that can be
extorted or borrowed is cast into the melting pot, for the sake
of self-preservation or for the sake of victory. If the nations