This rapid sketch of the preparations now going on in the economic sphere of Pan-Germany will permit any clear-thinking man to understand the crushing power which will lie in this formidable system when all its latent resources have been developed by the Germans to the profit of their hegemony. The organization of Pan-Germany is only in its first stages; nevertheless, the concentrated military, economic, and strategic strength which it has already put at the disposal of Berlin is so great that it permits Germany to baffle her far more numerous, but widely scattered, adversaries. What, then, would be the strength of a completely organized Pan-Germany? It is undeniable, in fact, that a methodical, big-scale development of all the mineral, vegetable, animal, and industrial products of economic Pan-Germany, together with the low-cost transportation afforded by a complete system of canals, would make it possible for the Germans to pay high wages to their own workmen, and yet at the same time bring about such a reduction of net prices in every line of industry as to force Pan-German products on the whole world by their sheer cheapness. It is easy to see, then, that in the face of economic Pan-Germany’s overwhelming methods any economic revival on the part of the European nations now allied would be impossible. The economic ruin of the Allies, after so exhausting and costly a war as this, would by the nature of things bring about their political subjection to Berlin. Besides, there is not a country in the world which could escape the clutches of economic Pan-Germany on the one hand, or the consequences of the irremediable ruin of the Allies on the other. The fact that Pan-Germany is organizing itself is an ominous event which should receive the concentrated attention of all the world’s free peoples; for it places in German hands the elements of such an overwhelming economic power as has no precedent in the world’s history. V _The fifth element of German advantage: the value of military Pan-Germany_ Berlin relies, above all else, on her military resources to render secure for all time that economic Pan-Germany which is destined to provide her, in peace-time, with a permanent means of acquiring wealth and world-dominion. Military Pan-Germany is, therefore, the complement and the pledge of economic Pan-Germany. The Kaiser’s successful seizure, through the fortunes of war, of new sources of man-power—Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman soldiery; of new strategic points or regions of exceptional importance, located in invaded countries _or in those of his own allies_, has furnished him with the basis of military Pan-Germany. In 1914, Prussian militarism held sway over only the 68 million inhabitants of the German Empire. At the beginning of 1917, it had been extended by consent or by force to the 176 million people of Pan-Germany.