Fortunately, a change in the national habits of extravagance is to be recorded. The increased cost of living is compelling more sparing use of the necessaries of life and industry. The incontrovertible truth of the axiom “Waste not; want not,” although it may sound rather trite, has been brought home to us. But the complete salvage of waste is probably impossible of realization so long as the kitchen stove and furnace remain. Fire is an excellent destructive agency, but is far too handy for the removal from sight, if not from memory, of the multitude of odds and ends incidental to our complex social and industrial existence. With the coming of the electric age, and the supersession of kitchen stoves and factory furnaces by cheap current, the facilities for the ready destruction of what is really valuable raw material under the guise of waste will be removed. In the interests of economy and wealth, both individual and national, it is to be hoped that the coming of the electric era may not be unduly delayed. CHAPTER II THE GERMAN CONQUEST OF WASTE Waste creates wealth. If one desire a convincing illustration of the truth of this latter-day precept one has only to cross the North Sea. It is generally conceded that, at the dawn of the second decade of the twentieth century, the Teutonic Empire had the world at its feet so far as commerce is concerned. There is little reason to doubt but that Germany would have become the super-trading nation of the world within a few more years had not territorial ambition and the lust for military conquest have blinded Reason. The pre-war wealth of the country, that is as it stood in 1914, is universally acknowledged. But what is not so generally appreciated is the circumstance that, to a very marked degree, this wealth was secured as a result of the scientific utilization of waste. In every ramification of industrial and social activity thrift, system, and organization were conspicuous. Circumstances were primarily responsible for the pursuance of such a policy. Germany is essentially an agricultural country. She was dependent upon outside sources of supply for many of the staple raw materials wherewith to keep her mills and factories going. Consequently she was compelled to rely for her existence upon the margin between buying and selling, and she naturally strove to render this difference as pronounced as possible by turning her purchases to the maximum advantage. Even in the exploitation of her natural resources this tendency was manifest, but little wastage being suffered.