I am bound, however, in fairness to call the attention of the unwary dabbler in statistics to a point of grave importance in dealing with German finances. The German Empire, so far as expenditure and income are concerned, is merely an office, a clearing-house so to speak, for the states which together make up the empire. The expenses of the empire, for example, in 1910 were $757,900,000 and of the army and navy, including extraordinary expenditures, $314,919,325; this does not include pensions, clerical expenses, interest, sinking-fund, and loss of productive labor, as did the figures on a preceding page. To the ignorant or to the malicious, who quote these figures to bolster up a socialist or pacifist preachment, this looks as though Germany had spent one half of her grand total on the army and navy. But this is quite wrong. In addition to the expenditures of this imperial clearing-house called the German Empire, there was spent by the states $1,467,325,000: the so-called clearinghouse bearing the whole burden of expenses for army and navy, the separate states nothing except the per capita tax, called the matriculation tax, of some 80 pfennigs. To make this matter still more clear, as it is a constant source of error not only to the foreigner but to the Germans themselves, the income of the empire for 1910 was $757,900,000, the income of all the states $1,463,150,000, or of the empire and the states combined $2,221,050,000. In the same way the debt of the empire in 1910 stood at $1,224,150,000, and the debt of the states of the empire at $3,856,325,000, or a grand total outstanding indebtedness of all Germany of $5,080,475,000. Of late years the imperial expenditure of Great Britain, for example, has amounted to some $935,000,000 a year; but various local bodies spend also some $900,000,000 a year. Some of this is cross-spending, but the grand total amounts to some $1,500,000,000 a year. Before writing or speaking of Germany it is well to know at least what Germany is. To pick up a hand-book and to quote therefrom the figures relating to the German Empire, as though these covered Germany, as is often done, is as accurate and helpful to the inquirer, as though one should take the figures of the New York clearing-house as accurate descriptions of the total and detailed business of all the New York banks and trust companies. A clearing-house is merely a piece of machinery for the adjustment of differences between a host of debtors and creditors. The comparative cost of the German army and navy can only be figured properly against the income and expenditure of the total wealth of all Germany. And all Germany is something more than the German Empire, which in certain respects is only a book-keeper, an adjuster of differences. "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland? Ist's Preussenland? Ist's Schwabenland? Ist's wo am Rhein die Rebe blueht? Ist's wo am Belt die Moeve zieht? O nein! O nein! O nein! Sein Vaterland muss groesser sein.