The enormous expenditure necessitated by the war will call for special financial legislation of which the keynote will be found in monopolies. Now, the present German Finance Minister, who is a banker by training, intends that the monopolies to be created shall be effected, not by the unaided resources of the State, but by its co-operation with the interested business men and banks. On this basis he is working at monopolies of cigarettes, life insurance and electric power. This complex arrangement is facilitated by the machinery of the banks and their peculiar activity. And here we touch upon one of the main sources whence German organization after the war will draw its vitality. It is on the operations of these financial institutions that it behoves us to lay stress. They are so many magnetic centres which attract nearly all the free capital of the country and then employ it as they think fit. And one momentous consequence of this command of money is the possession of almost unrestricted power over industrial enterprises, present and future. For it depends on the banks to extend these and to restrict the output of those in consonance with the economic policy pursued by the State. Nor should it be forgotten that the power and influence of the banks is not limited by the amount of capital they actually possess. Over and above this they wield all the financial force conferred by the vast amounts deposited with them by customers. This was evidenced in the case of the Banca Commerciale in Italy, which had a working capital of L6,240,000 in the year 1914. Now, of that sum only 2.5 per cent. was owned by Germans, yet the bank itself and all the industries dependent on it were exploited by the German Board of Directors.[149] In the Fatherland we observe the same phenomenon. All the German banks together, excepting the hypothecary institutions, owned L195,000,000 sterling, about 44 per cent. of which belonged to the eight principal banks of the empire.[150] Possessing only L86,050,000 of their own, they disposed of L259,600,000 belonging to other people. [149] Giovanni Preziosi, _La Germania alla Conquista d'Italia_, 2d edizione, p. 150. [150] Deutsche Bank, 248 million marks; Diskonto Gesellschaft, 149 millions; Dresdner Bank, 261 millions; Darmstaedter Bank, 192 millions; Berliner Handelsg. 145 millions; Commerz- u. Diskonto Bank, 100 millions; Nationalbank, 98 millions; Mitteldeutsche Kreditbank, 69 million marks.