“After all,” says Mr. Withers, “you cannot have credit without civilization, and at the beginning of last August civilization went into the hands of a Receiver, the God of Battles, who will in due course bring forth his scheme of reconstruction. When the five chief nations of Europe turn their attention from production to destruction, it is idle to expect any system of credit to go unscathed. Credit depends on the assumption that goods produced will come to market and be sold, and that securities that are based on the earning power of production will fetch a price on the exchanges of the world. War on the smallest scale weakens this assumption with respect to certain goods and certain securities; if its scale is big enough it makes the assumption so precarious that credit is shaken to its base.” When we contemplate and analyse civilization we see two aspects, or conditions, of it. There is a moral civilization and a non-moral civilization. Many would contend that Germany presents a type of non-moral civilization and that Great Britain and other countries present types of moral civilization. An advanced stage of economic civilization is not essentially and implicitly an advanced moral or ethical civilization. In moral civilization the Esquimaux may be our superiors. In economic civilization they are our inferiors. This is largely due to environment. Rivalry in commerce is not essentially moral rivalry. We can, indeed, call it a mercenary, or sordid rivalry, in which virtue and honesty play minor parts. We may flatter ourselves that, as a nation, we would gladly be more virtuous if other nations would let us. This is, at least, an admission that other nations “do not play the moral game.” Out of this rivalry wars have sprung, and the present world-war is one of the fruits of the envy begotten of our commercial supremacy. What is the kind of civilization, therefore, that went into the hands of a Receiver? Germany is fighting for low civilization, the allies for high civilization. Indeed, it is said, and not without truth, that it is not civilization warring with civilization, but civilization warring against barbarism. The motives of Germany are debased, the motives of the allies lofty. If the allies, as all believe, have been raised in this contest to a high plane of morality--I might even say to a high plane of spirituality--then moral civilization may gain, and a higher order of credit, or belief, may come of it. From a narrow economic standpoint Germany’s civilization has been high and may continue high. But after the war, what will be the state of her moral civilization? Lower than it has ever been, for morally she will be degraded. No nations will be able to put credit, or trust, in her. She will have forfeited moral trust, forfeited all moral credit. But will she have forfeited all economic credit? Should she rehabilitate her economic credit, it will enable us to see more clearly the distinction between moral and economic credit.