The _Vorwaerts_, without boasting, as Dr. Helfferich has been doing, of Germany's financial invincibility, yet sees cause for satisfaction in the economic condition of the Empire after twelve months of war. The upheaval of the first week of war was indeed serious, and the grim spectre of unemployment was in the air. But it was soon laid. The best results were obtained in the sphere of unemployment. At the beginning of the war it was about 22-1/2 per cent, in October only 10.9 per cent, and in May it had further sunk to 2.9 per cent. The figures for June were 2.6 per cent as against 2.5 per cent in the previous June.... Similarly the daily output of coal of the Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate, which in July, 1914, reached 327,974 tons, sank in August to 170,816 tons, in September rose again to 211,995, and in October to 223,760, the figures for that month being 60 per cent of those of the previous October.... In later months, in spite of the calling up of more and more workers, it has only been 25 to 27 per cent below the normal. The writer tells the same story of the iron and textile industries, and traces the good results to the fact that the supplies of raw materials were far greater than had been thought. For instance, there were about 700,000 bales of cotton more than are needed in a normal year. Besides which the stores of conquered countries were at the disposal of the conquerors. The only trades which really suffered were those in luxuries. The article concludes thus: The German trade has survived the shocks of the first year of war better than the most convinced optimist could have hoped, and better than the organisation of other belligerents. All fears of immediate inevitable industrial collapse which haunted us at the beginning of the war have been dissipated. Instead of this we meet in all industrial circles with the consciousness [often much exaggerated] that "We can endure." The words in brackets are significant. 18. _Pall Mall Gazette_, November 10, 1916: LIVING ON WAR KRUPPS' PROFIT JUMPS FROM 1-1/2 MILLIONS TO 4-1/2 AMSTERDAM, _Tuesday Night_. An Essen telegram states that the clear profit last year of Krupps amounted to 86,400,000 marks (L4,320,000), as compared with a profit of 33,900,000 marks (L1,695,000) in the preceding year. A dividend of 12 per cent has been distributed.--Reuter. _19. Pall Mall Gazette:_ GERMAN DIVIDENDS ECONOMIC POSITION OF SOME OF HER COMPANIES The 1914 dividends of over sixty limited companies, nearly all German, and the remainder Austrian, show that in the case of sixteen companies the dividends amounted to 20 per cent or over, the average being 25-3/16 per cent. These companies (says the _Morning Post_) are mainly engaged in the production of leather, dynamite, explosives, india-rubber, arms, ammunition, and powder. In one case, that of an explosives company in Hamburg, the dividend attained 40 per cent.