Looking over trade statistics as they apply to China many people must have been surprised at the considerable figure which Germany cuts therein. Merchants from Hankow, for instance, tell us that Germany seems to be the only country able to pay for Chinese produce to any considerable " extent, and in proof thereof point to the large staffs which German firms are accumulating there and in some cases to the more commodious premises—in comparison with pre-war days—now in course of construction. Yet we see Germany faced with a huge financial burden for reparations and with her currency in the nature of a farce, and may be excused for surprise. But there lis a perfectly good reason for all this prosperity, and it is merely that she lost the war. Paradoxical though this may appear, it is none the less true, and is roughly as follows: To start with, after the armistice, she was hemmed round with restrictions on her commerce, prolonged because she refused to play a square game. and so in spite of the efforts of her commercial magnates' to get her international trade going, she had to be content with a very small share. Meanwhile the other nations were producing as fast as they could, using materials whose prices had soared beyond all recognition, and the whole world was whirling giddily forward, as it little imagined then, on to a commercial maelstrom. In it went, and is still more or less in the vortex. By the mere fact of being unable to participate in the wild orgies of other nations, Germany was saved. She lived from hand to mouth, and as things turned out had no heavy commercial failures to hamper her course, and so to-day is in a particularly favourable position to do a large trade. The kind-hearted reparation experts might take heed of such colossal luck in their metaphorically mixed efforts to temper the wind to the unshorn wolf in lamb's clothing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.