The agricultural population of Germany in 1850 was 65 in the 100; it is now less than one third. In 1911, after a bad year for the farmers, Germany was obliged to pay out some $200,000,000 more than usual for food. The total loans of the German banks on industrial securities rose from $107,000,000 in 1890 to $632,000,000 in 1910, and bankers themselves admit that Germany has fallen into the error of seeking and accepting credit far beyond the value of the capital that they have to work with. Still more dangerous is the fact that 55 per cent. of the savings-bank moneys of Germany is locked up in mortgages. In 1907, 217 new companies were formed in Germany, issuing $62,050,900 in securities; in 1909, 179 new companies issued $54,929,450 of securities; in 1910, 186 new companies issued $57,437,700 of securities. In 1910, 340 companies increased their capital by $142,657,200. In 1910 there were 5,295 companies in Germany with a nominal capital of $3,680,979,400. It is estimated that since 1895 there has been invested in industrial companies in Germany $1,200,000,000. It is to be said also that since 1897 German agricultural production has doubled, German industrial production increased sevenfold, and Germany is said to have $4,750,000,000 in her savings-banks. The value of imports for home consumption, exclusive of the precious metals, in 1911 was $2,386,200,000; the value of the exports of home produce, exclusive of the precious metals, was $2,025,450,000. It is a quaint result of her temperament and her good forestry, that Germany sells $25,000,000 worth of toys a year; she is veritably the workshop of Santa Claus, and many more than 25,000,000 children would bless her did they know. German financiers affirm that she can stand alone financially, while others assert that one sixth of her capital, I have heard it placed at one third, is borrowed from France and England. It is certain at least that the American panic of 1907, and the recent war in the Near East, have seriously embarrassed Germany financially. As Germany can only feed, even in good harvest years, forty-eight or forty-nine millions of her people, a large proportion of her profits from industry must necessarily go to the purchase of food for the other sixteen or seventeen millions. The consumption of meat has increased among all classes in Germany, and both the demands of the individual and of the state have increased with the increased wealth of the country. In Prussia alone the number of those subject to income tax has increased from 2,400,000 in 1892 to 6,200,000 in 1912; but the taxes have increased as well, or from $800,000,000 to $1,675,000,000.