war at the opening of hostilities. This was out of a total of $1,850,000,000. A great part of this commerce is classed as among that which yields the greatest import tax, which means that internal taxes must be imposed on the people to make up for the money necessary to meet with the yearly loss occasioned during the continuance of the war.

ANNUAL NATIONAL INCOME.

In the United States there is an annual national income of $50,000,000,000, the total bank resources being $35,000,000,000, the individual deposits being $24,000,000,000, with cash held by the banks totaling $2,500,000,000, total gold stock in the country being $3,000,000,000, and available additional commercial credits on the basis of cash holdings totaling $6,000,000,000.

The borrowing power of the American Government does not total less than $40,000,000,000, from domestic sources, and this does not disturb the ordinary financial and economical affairs of the nation.

During the first five months in 1917 the Government of the United States reached a record for expenditures never before equalled in American history. The total amount expended was $1,600,000,000.

The chief item of the increase $607,500,000-was the purchase of the obligations of foreign Governments in exchange for loans advanced to the Allies. The sum did not represent by approximately $140,000,000 the total amount authorized in loans. An increase of approximately $245,000,000 in the ordinary disbursements of the Government, chiefly due to military and naval needs, also was recorded and another item going to swell the grand total of expenditures was the payment of $25,000,000 for purchase of the Danish West Indies.

War loans of the six chief European belligerents, early in 1917, aggregated approximately $53,113,000,000.

Loans of the chief Entente nations, Great Britain, France,

Russia and Italy, were placed at about $36,300,000,000; those of Germany and Austria-Hungary, not including the sixth German loan reported to have yielded about $3,000,000,000, at $18,800,000,000.

The amounts of the various loans were placed at:

Great Britain, to March 31, 1917, $18,805,000,000; France, to February 28, $10,500,000,000; Russia, to December 31, 1916, $7,896,000,000; Italy, to December 31, 1916, $2,520,000,000; Germany, to December, 31, 1916, $11,226,000,000; 'Austria, to December 31, 1916, $5,880,000,000; Hungary, $1,730,000,000.

The total included the advances made by the United Kingdom and France to the smaller belligerent countries allied with them.

SOME IDEA OF NATIONAL FINANCING.

Some idea of what all this financing means to a country may be judged by the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in October, 1916, replying to questions regarding the English loans in the House of Commons, declared that England was paying at that time about $10,000,000 a day in the United States, for every working day in the

year.

When the English mission visited the United States in May, 1917, after the country had entered the war, there was handed to Arthur James Balfour, ex-Premier of England, a check for $200,000,000, said to have been one of the largest single checks ever paid in this country. It was a loan for war purposes. In the month of June it was stated that the total advance made to the Allies was $923,000,000, among the loans made then was one of $75,000,000 to Great Britain, and $3,000,000 to Servia. The Servian loan, the first made by the United States to that country, was mainly for the improvement of railway lines. A small portion was used for the relief of the distressed population, and Red Cross work.

It was stated that the allied countries would spend in America, in the neighborhood of $200,000,000 a month for the year; which brings attention to the resources which America turned in against Germany when she joined the allied forces. To meet the demands made upon it the Government borrowed at once $3,000,000,000 by popular subscription-a matter of history of which the nation is proud.

From its funds the country loaned Russia $100,000,000, which was the first loan made by the United States to that Government. A credit of $45,000,000 to Belgium was also established by the Secretary of the Treasury. This also was Belgium's first participation in the loan of the Allies.

COUNTRY'S NATURAL RESOURCES.

Aside from the financial resources of the United States, the country is undoubtedly the richest in agricultural, mineral and other natural resources. It annually produces more than 3,500,000,000 bushels of corn, wheat touching the high point of 1,500,000,000 bushels; 1,600,000,000 bushels of oats; 250,000,000 bushels of barley; 40,000,000 bushels of rye; 22,000,000 bushels of buckwheat; 425,000,000 bushels of potatoes; 77,000,000 tons of hay; 30,000,000 bushels of flaxseed; 7,000,000,000 pounds of cotton; more than 1,000,000,000 pounds of tobacco; 2,000,000 long tons of sugar and 275,000,000 pounds of wool.

There are nearly 70,000,000 swine, and as many cattle, more than 25,000,000 head of horses and mules, and 62,000,000 sheep. Coal is mined at the rate of more than 500,000,000 tons yearly, and the copper mines yield 1,250,000,000 pounds of metal. Petroleum wells yield 225,500,000 barrels yearly. There are 270,000 manufacturing plants with a yearly output of more than $25,000,000,000. The products of the farm total more than $11,000,000,000 annually.

As to Germany's position, economists all over the world have considered her position as not only lacking soundness, but as crazy-crazy in that no attention whatever has appar

ently been paid to what are recognized as firmly fixed economic laws. The world has been at a loss to understand Germany's attitude, and it can only be explained by assuming that Germany was perfectly well aware of the entire unsoundness of her commercial and financial position, and was willing, or, in fact, had to risk everything with the hope of acquiring sufficient indemnity, resulting from the war, to bring her financial affairs to a sound basis. Germany's entire structure from the close of the Franco-Prussian war evidently was built upon rotten foundations.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WORLD RULERS AT WAR.

WOODROW WILSON, THE CHAMPION OF DEMOCRACY-THE EGOTISTICAL KAISERTHE GERMAN CROWN PRINCE-BRITAIN'S MONARCH-CONSTANTINE WHO QUIT RATHER THAN FIGHT GERMANY-PRESIDENT POINCAIRE AND OTHER NATIONAL HEADS.

N

O matter what the human frailties may be there are always men who rise in the stress of circumstances to unexpected heights. They thrive upon difficulties and in the emergencies become protectors and saviors of men. In the world's greatest melting-pot-the burned and blood-stained battle-fields of Europe-there were tried and tested millions of men of all nationalities and characteristics, and though the experience was one of bitterness, there was found in it the satisfaction that in their own way millions of men proved themselves great.

Out of the hordes that rode over mountains, sailed the seas or picked their way through trenches and across the scarred surface of the earth there looms the figures of some whose names will go down in history for all time. Their names will be written indelibly upon the pages of life and they will be known for ages after the evidences of the great strife have been obliterated and the peace for which the world struggled has been made a permanent thing.

Among those whose names will be forever linked with the terrible war as a leader of men-whose figure stands out against the mass of humanity-is Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America. Though he neither faced bullets nor tramped the historic byways of Europe in the terrible struggle, he was to all intents and purposes the commander-in-chief of all the world forces seeking to break the autocratic domination of the Hohenzollerns of Germany