Yet this well-nigh overwhelming rush of figures only accounts for the actual cost of hostilities. By this I mean arms and armament, food and military supplies, the construction, maintenance and renewal of fleets, the cost of transport and the pay of soldiers and sailors. To the vast sum already recorded must be added the loss registered by the destruction of cities, towns and villages, the sinking of ships, the wiping out of factories, warehouses, bridges, roads and railways. Then, too, you must allow for the almost incalculable productive loss due to the killing and maiming of millions of men: the shrinkage of agricultural yields and the more or less general dislocation of the machinery of output. All these factors pile up a total, the calculation of which would almost cause a compound fracture of the brain. Sufficient to say it puts a terrific human and financial tax on coming generations and we in America will feel its effects when the world begins to readjust itself to the altered social and economic conditions which will come with peace. Of course the inevitable question arises: Who is paying the Scarlet Piper? In seeking the answer you encounter for the first time America's intimate and all-important part in the costly drama now being unfolded to the tune of billions. She sits in the armoured box-office with the Treasurers of the embattled nations. At the outset of the war all the belligerent countries believed that they could finance their needs without seeking neutral aid. Less than a year was enough to dispel this delusion. Although England and France immediately voted immense credits they were not long in finding out that they must back up their unprecedented mobilisation of resources with outside help. They came to us. When the great Anglo-French loan of $500,000,000 was first discussed as a possible American financial feat, people over here began to wonder why Great Britain and France, whose combined wealth exceeds that of all the other nations at war, should want overseas assistance. Since the reason for this loan as well as the disposition of proceeds are practically the same as that of most of the other Allied issues in this country in which thousands of our investors have participated, it is well worth explaining because it also carries with it a lesson in international barter. Here it is: Before the war our foreign trade was growing fast. England and France, in particular, were good customers for our wheat and other foodstuffs, iron and cotton manufactures, oil and automobiles. In exchange we imported the product of many European factories.