ish and French Armies still buy provisions
on the Paris markets.

Notwithstanding the legitimate reasons that can be put forward to
explain the upward trend of prices, the authorities know well enough
that all is not so innocent and above board as it appears. One or two
more glaring instances than usual of manipulation have put them on the
right track at last. Other steps may also be expected, for public
opinion has got to the point that either the "inside ring" must be
broken up or popular resentment will take a form that no Government can
afford to overlook or affect to ignore.

17. _The Daily News_, August 16, 1915:

A YEAR OF ECONOMIC WAR

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
beginn