as cotton and woollen goods, clothing, gold
and silver ware, porcelain, maps, prints, and the like, actually
decreased by $66,975,000!

I am not maintaining for a moment that these problems are peculiar to
Germany, but merely that, owing to the rapid progress, they are
aggravated, and that to point out Germany as a model of successful
achievement, along these and other lines, in order to bolster up
political cure-alls at home, is a betrayal of crass ignorance of the
general internal situation of the country, and once such prejudiced
pleaders are found out, the rebound will go too far the other way.
That were a pity, too, for we have much to learn from Germany.

The $30,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower at Spandau, called the
war-chest, and the income from railroads, forests, and mines, are to be
put down on the other side of the ledger, but as a year's war, it is
calculated, would cost France, England, or Germany some $2,300,000,000
each, these sums are of negligible importance.

The Prussian railways
cost $2,250,000,000, and are now valued at twice that sum, and pay an
average of seven per cent. on the invested capital. Maintenance costs
are included in the total annual expenses, and there is no, so it is
claimed, actual depreciation. Of the net revenue of $157,330,417 in
1909, about $55,000,000 are transferred to the state revenue, out of
which all charges of the state, including interest on bonds, are paid.
The rest is used for new construction, sinking funds, reserve funds,
and so on.

The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1909-1910
states that there are nearly $19,000,000,000 of railway capital
outstanding in America. There are 240,438 miles of single track in the
United States; 59,000 locomotives, 35,000 for freight, and a total of
2,290,000 cars of all kinds; and the railways carried in one year
971,683,000 passengers and 1,850,000,000 tons of freight. In 1910, 386
persons were killed, but, what is often forgotten, more than one half
the total accidents were due to stealing rides and trespassing on the
tracks. The railways in the United States are our largest purchasers
by far, and for every dollar they earn 42 cents is spent in wages, 26
cents for material, raw or manufactured, before anything is given out
for interest on loans or dividends.

A first-class ticket in Germany is taxed 16 per cent. on the price of
the ticket; a second-class ticket, 8 per cent.; a third-class ticket,
4 per cen