We remember how hard it was in France before the war to find, by means of taxes, even the 500 million of francs needed for new expenditures. How could we find annually an additional sum of five milliard francs of taxes in a country cruelly devastated by the struggle and where the re-organization of economic life would have to be complete? It is obvious that the most crushing taxes levied on every person would not suffice for such a sum to be regularly raised. Such a situation must inevitably tend to raise for the State and for every Frenchman individually considerable financial difficulties. The same would apply to economic undertakings. Thousands of these, at present in the hands of shareholders or bond-holders, would be in a most precarious condition, or the securities would be immensely depreciated. Landed property, overburdened by taxes and specially affected by the shortage of labour, would lose a great part of its value. This situation would lead to a general rise in prices for the commodities of daily life, and that again would lay a fresh burden on the back of every Frenchman. The financial position would be analogous for the Russians and for the English, who of all the belligerents have spent most on the war. The Germans, in trying their “Drawn Game” trick, reckon oil these financial consequences to reduce the Allies to ultimate impotence. The only way to avoid this danger is to win that complete victory which all the Allies desire, since it would enable them to impose on Germany the payment of the war indemnity which she unquestionably owes, as she is responsible for the hostilities. Annuities paid to each of the Allies will be used as the basis of loans, which will help to tide over the serious financial difficulties that infallibly await all the belligerents after the war. III. The menace involved in the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” creates between the Allies in Europe, a common bond of interest, which is far superior to their own individual interests, and which ought to keep them firmly united to the end. France, England, Russia and Italy have an identical and an absolutely vital interest in defeating for ever the scheme of an empire that should reach from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. This is quite apart from the purely humanitarian consideration that the numerous non-German peoples who live between Bohemia and the Persian Gulf should not be finally subservient to Germany. The achievement of the “Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” scheme threatens all neutral states, for it would guarantee to Germany, as we shall see presently, her domination over the world.