Dear _Mr. Punch_,--I cannot for the life of me understand why your contemporaries should be in such difficulties over the above question or how it is that they arrive at such diverse estimates. The elements of the problem are perfectly straightforward. I worked it out on the back of my ticket in the Tube last night, and as there can be no doubt whatever about my conclusions I think they ought to be published. The present population of Germany for popular purposes (as they always say) is 70,000,000. All the evidence goes to show that the war is still popular in Germany, or parts of it, so we may accept that figure. Very well. Of these, 33,000,000 are males. It seems a good many, but we shall soon begin to whittle it down. By examining the figures of the different "age groups" we find that fully five million of these are under the age of seven and as quite a number are over sixty and others are incapacitated--we have no space to enter into all these complicated calculations here--we shall not be far wrong if we deduct at the outset about 21,175,000 under these heads. This leaves us in round figures twelve million. We now come to the question of losses up to date; and here we must proceed with caution, for it is above all important to be on the safe side. The present German losses are computed by the best authorities at about two million, from all causes, up to 3 P.M. on the 13th ult. From this we must deduct, however, all those who, after being wounded, have returned to the firing-line--say, half a million. Also all those who, having been wounded a second time, have returned to the front,--say, three hundred thousand. Also all those who have been three times wounded and have still gone back to fight--say, fifty thousand. Then again we must remember those who have been invalided home and recovered, and those who have been missing and are found again. And there are the men who have been erroneously reported as prisoners, owing to the Germans' incorrigible habit of exaggerating the number of their own troops who have fallen into the enemy's hands. After all these deductions we may safely put the revised German losses at 750,000. This should be taken off the twelve million eligible; but it would, I think, be wise (in order to keep always on the safe side) to add it on. This gives us 12,750,000. Very well. But the industries of the country must be carried on. There are the railways, agriculture, mining. Let us say five million for these. There are those great industries without which a nation cannot wage war; for instance, the makers of Iron Crosses (100,000), the custodians of ships retained in harbour (50,000), the printers of picture-postcards (50,000), the writers of Hate-hymns, besides sundry makers of armaments and things.