In the endeavor to increase the manufacturing output and to find new markets German credit has been stretched to a dangerous tenuity. While the war feeling was at its height the Koelnische Zeitung, a conservative and able journal, wrote: "In case of war both France and Germany will be obliged to borrow; but it is certain that the credit of Germany cannot as yet be compared with the credit of France: this is a strong guarantee of peace." Wermuth, said by impartial judges to be the ablest secretary of the treasury the German Empire has had in a quarter of a century, resigned in 1912, on the general ground that he would not be responsible for the finances of the empire, if it was proposed to continue the constant increase of national expenditure, by a constant increase of borrowing, and an ever-increasing amount of interest-bearing liabilities. He must have smiled to himself when an Imperial issue at four per cent. put out in February, 1913, was not only not over-subscribed but not even all taken. Unlike the French, who invest their savings small and large in national loans, the Germans neglect even their own national loans, preferring the higher returns for their investments from the innumerable industries launched in modern Germany; so pronounced is this form of investment, that a director of the Deutsche Bank has warned his countrymen, that every month's profits are no sooner gained than they are put out again in new enterprises, either by the individuals themselves, or by the banks in which they are deposited. As a result, the liquid capital at the disposal of Germany is dangerously out of proportion to her borrowings and her working capital. It shows a fine confidence in the future, and it proves what needs no proof: the immense industrial and commercial progress, and the immense sea-carrying trade of Germany. Germany is like a man with $1,000 in the bank to check upon, but doing business with $100,000 of borrowed capital, upon which he must pay interest, and out of which he must take his running expenses. Such a one has no provision for a bad year, and must depend upon more credit in case of trouble; and in the case of Germany, it may be added, his personal and family expenses have largely increased. The German imperial debt had increased during the first twenty-two years of the present Emperor's reign, or from 1888 to 1910, by $1,040,000,000, and of that sum some $650,000,000 were added in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, when Germany was building her fleet.