e Ottoman
establishment has not observed, or enforced, the plain rules of economy
in its utilisation of the subject peoples, and finds itself today
bankrupt in consequence. What may afford more of a parallel to the
prospective German tutelage of the nations is the procedure of the
Japanese establishment in Korea, Manchuria, or China; which is also duly
covered with an ostensibly decent screen of diplomatic parables, but the
nature and purpose of which is overt enough in all respects but the
nomenclature. It is not unlikely that even this Japanese usufruct and
tutelage runs on somewhat less humane and complaisant lines than a
well-advised economy of resources would dictate for the prospective
German usufruct of the Western nations.

There is the essential difference between the two cases that while Japan
is over-populated, so that it becomes the part of a wise government to
find additional lands for occupancy, and that so it is constrained by its
imperial ambitions to displace much of the population in its subject
territories, the Fatherland on the other hand is under-populated--
notoriously, though not according to the letter of the diplomatic
parables on this head--and for the calculable future must continue to be
under-populated; provided that the state of the industrial arts
continues subject to change in the same general direction as hitherto,
and provided that no radical change affects the German birth-rate. So,
since the Imperial government has no need of new lands for occupancy by
its home population, it will presumably be under no inducement to take
measures looking to the partial depopulation of its subject territories.

The case of Belgium and the measures looking to a reduction of its
population may raise a doubt, but probably not a well taken doubt. It is
rather that since it has become evident that the territory can not be
held, it is thought desirable to enrich the Fatherland with whatever
property can be removed, and to consume the accumulated man-power of the
Belgian people in the service of the war. It would appear that it is a
war-measure, designed to make use of the enemy's resources for his
defeat. Indeed, under conditions of settled occupation or subjection,
any degree of such depopulation would entail an economic loss, and any
well-considered administrative policy would therefore look to the
maintenance of the inhabitants of the acquired territories in
undiminished numbers and unimpaired serviceab