io THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE ch.

such supply of the precious metals as might seemconvenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreignquarters, without knowledge of their religion, lan-guage, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon hisperson, and would consider himself greatly aggrievedand much surprised at the least interference. But,most important of all, he regarded this state ofaffairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except inthe direction of further improvement, and any devia-tion from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable.The projects and politics of militarism and imperial-ism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies,restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play theserpent to this paradise, were little more than theamusements of his daily newspaper, and appeared toexercise almost no influence at all on the ordinarycourse of social and economic life, the international-isation of which was nearly complete in practice.

It will assist us to appreciate the character andconsequences of the Peace which we have imposedon our enemies, if I elucidate a little further someof the chief unstable elements, already present whenwar broke out, in the economic life of Europe .

L Population

In 1870, Germany had a population of about

40,000,000. By 1892 this figure had risen to

50,000,000, and by June 30, 1914, to about

68,000,000. In the years immediately preceding the