A few facts and statistics may recall this to memory. The population of
Germany has since 1870, immigrants excluded, increased from 40,000,000
to 67,000,000, round numbers. Incomes and wages in particular have
approximately doubled during the last generation; savings deposits have
increased sixfold. Although, only a generation ago, commerce and trade
employed only about two-fifths of the population, now more than
three-fifths are engaged in this field of work, and Germany, as a result
of its agricultural economy and increased intense farming, is today the
third largest agricultural country of the world. In the coal and iron
industries Germany is second only to America. In one generation its coal
production increased two and a half fold, its raw iron production almost
fourfold. During the same period of time the capital of the German banks
increased fourfold and their reserve fund eightfold. Characteristic of
Germany is the fact that hand in hand with this active private
initiative is a strong feeling for the great universal interests and for
organic co-operation of private and State resources. This feeling
explains the perfect working of our State activities, in particular our
railways, 95 per cent. of which are owned by the Government and which
yield an essentially higher revenue than those in England or France; it
explains further the willing assumption of the great financial burdens
which general insurance imposes upon those engaged in private
enterprises and which today is proving a blessing to almost the entire
laboring force of Germany, to an extent which has not yet been realized
by any other country.
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