The hoarding of gold in European war-chests was still going on. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street found herself unable to retain in her coffers any large proportion of the extraordinary European supply. Paris and Berlin and St. Petersburg added to their enormous stores at every opportunity. The sinews of war were being accumulated with the utmost greediness, for everybody felt that the day was not far distant when a mighty tragedy of nations was again to darken the pages of history. So keenly did all the governments of Europe watch every feature of the situation, that it was not surprising that Russia should be credited with the intention to take advantage of the plethora of money in America by attempting to float a loan in that country. Nor was Russia the only government that was considering schemes for tempting away Yankee gold. Even bankrupt Italy hoped to offer inducements which might yield her the use of some portion of this New World wealth. In August, 1895, therefore, the financial war which often precedes the drawing of the sword had reached an advanced and acute stage. The situation was peculiarly menacing to Great Britain. Lord Beaconsfield once said to a friend who asked him, during a serious foreign crisis, what were England’s chances of success in the event of war: “The key to that situation is in Threadneedle Street.” The wisdom of the saying was never more appreciated than now. Disaster had followed disaster in financial, in commercial, and in industrial circles for five years. Losses which would have brought any but the richest nation in the world to the verge of ruin had been sustained one after another, until it seemed that not even English pluck could stand up against more such blows. Not only had foreign and colonial ventures swallowed up millions, but home institutions, paying the penalty of recklessness or dishonesty, had fallen and involved many thousand private fortunes in the wreck. American tariffs and foreign competition had seriously cut down British trade. Labor wars, the most disastrous in history, had impoverished the working classes. And still Great Britain was solvent, undiscouraged, proudly maintaining her position in the van of the nations of the earth. England’s only danger lay in too great self-confidence. She did not deceive herself as to the nature of the peril which menaced her. For nearly two years it had been plainly apparent. Ever since the dual alliance between France and Russia had been ratified, it had been clear to close observers that Great Britain had as much if not more to fear from this new league than had the central continental powers. French hatred of her insular neighbors had been fanned from the first by an Anglophobe press. Diplomatic maneuvers and the movements of Franco-Russian fleets had been almost openly hostile to English interests. The wonder was that real hostilities had been so long delayed.