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THE NEW PROTECTIONISM

war casts upon our people, so long as it is not absolutely necessary. As things are, the only method seems to be to leave the settlement of the war-bill to the conclusion of peace and the time after peace has been concluded." In other words, Germany has been obliged to borrow every penny she has spent upon the war. Nor is that all. This year (1916), in order to meet the growing interest on the debt, Dr. Helfferich proposed taxes estimated to yield 24 millions a year. But that sum will furnish a good deal less than one-quarter of the interest of the war-borrowing actually incurred. Worse than that, closer inspection makes it evident that with this new taxation Germany will still be unable, not merely to contribute to the current costs of war, but to find the revenue required for her imperial expenditure upon an ordinary peace footing. As the Cobden Club shows in an able leaflet: "This means not only that Germany has not paid a penny out of income for the war, but that she has been obliged to borrow about half her