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of making taverns and public-houses not mere places the sale and consumption of alcohol, but places of wh some entertainment and comfort. If our working clas and (it may be added) our commercial classes, co become accustomed to take alcohol only in such ho of rest and ease, they might learn almost unconsciou to use it in moderation, and they would enjoy its ben without any drawback.

One more rule given by our advisers should mentioned. 'To avoid,' they say, 'direct injury to mucous membrane of the stomach, alcohol should be taken in concentrated form and without food.' plainer words, spirits should be avoided in favour of milder beverages which are customary in social enterta ments. It might be wished that more stress had be laid on one further warning, which is given in t concluding paragraph of the volume, namely, th 'alcoholic beverages are definitely injurious for childr It would no doubt be a good thing if, except und medical advice in special cases, young men would abst from such drinks until, in the strain and stress of act life, the need is felt of the special relief and refreshme which they afford after toil and exhaustion. If the principles and these practical rules are observed, "t temperate consumption of alcoholic liquors may,' we a told (p. 133), 'be considered to be physiologically harml in the case of the great majority of normal adults'; a they are thus legitimately enjoyable.

It should be added that this remarkable and imports volume is but the first of a series of enquiries which a being set on foot by Lord D'Abernon and the Board Control. In the preface, Lord D'Abernon states vario important questions on which, he says, we have present no really scientific knowledge. It is enough mention the first of these questions, which involv practical considerations of the highest importance: ' what way and to what extent, if at all, do solutions ethyl alcohol in water, as commonly used in laborato experiments, differ in their action on the nervous syste from ordinary alcoholic beverages of correspondin strength such as beer, wines or spirits?' In point fact we are not concerned, in practice, with pure alcoh We drink beer or wine or spirits; and, unless gener

belief on the subject is wholly mistaken, these beverages exert very various influences on the system. As an illustration, the following passage may be quoted from the delightful Manual on Diet in Health and Disease written by the late Dr King Chambers (1876, p. 328):

'In ague the combination in which Alcohol is offered is of considerable importance. The most generous red wines should be used; and the distance at which their bouquet may be smelt may be taken as a rough test of their utility. I remember learning a lesson on this point from a most unscientific source. I was chatting in the market-place at Dijon with a farmer's wife, when she incidentally mentioned that her husband was a great sufferer from ague, and was quite tired of swallowing quinine. I advised her to take home a good supply of Burgundy in her market-basket, and begged to contribute the few francs I had in my pocket. She tripped straight off to a grand wine-merchant's office; but, instead of coming out fully laden, she bore only two bottles, to the price of which she had contributed out of her own purse. It was of a vintage such as is allowed to trickle slowly over the tongue at the table of a prince; and I promptly called her a prodigal. "No, no," said she, "I am not; a mouthful of this is worth to a sick man a bucket of commoner wine-and yet the common wine of Dijon is not to be sneered at." She was quite right; there is no wine like Burgundy for ague, and the price (provided the merchant be honest) is a direct measure of its medicinal value.'

It is probable that wines have their specific influences on the system, as much as mineral waters; and it would be invaluable to have a scientific determination of the relative influences, for instance, of Champagne and Moselle, of white wines and red, and of the various species of each class; there must be something more than prejudice, for instance, in the special virtue for certain purposes attributed to Port. But it is an invaluable advantage to be at last given in this volume a really scientific verdict on the action on the human organism of alcohol itself, and to be thus placed in possession of a practical guide to its use on a thoroughly scientific basis.

H. WACE.

Art. 5. THE GERMAN BANKS AND 'PEACEF PENETRATION.'

1. Das Verhältnis der deutschen Grossbanken zur Indust

By Otto Jeidels. Leipzig: Duncker and Humb

1905.

2. Die Konzentration im deutschen Bankwesen. By P Wallich. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1906.

3. Das englische Bankwesen. By Edgar Jaffé. 2te Aufla Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1910.

4. Die finanzielle Entwicklung der Aktiengesellschaften deutschen chemischen Industrie, und ihre Beziehungen z Bankwelt. By Rolf Grabower. Leipzig: Duncker a Humblot, 1910.

5. Die deutschen Grossbanken und ihre Konzentration Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung der Gesamtwis schaft in Deutschland. By Jacob Riesser. 4te Auflag Jena Fischer, 1912.

6. Das Bankgeschäft (I. Verkehrstechnik und Betrieb Einrichtungen. II. Bankpolitik). By Georg Obs

Leipzig: Poeschel, 1914.

7. Depositenbanken und Spekulationsbanken. By Ado Weber. 2te Auflage. Leipzig: Duncker and Humblo 1915.

8. The Record Cards of the London Branch of th Dresdner Bank.

AMONG the many features of the German nationa character which have been laid bare in nearly ever part of the world since August 1914, few stand out mor prominently than Germany's policy of 'peaceful penetra tion.' In the sphere of industry and finance the Germa banks have been the most effectual agency of this policy They are a solid cogwheel in that system of 'nationa economics' which regards the State as an association based on military and industrial power. German in dustrial policy, in its concentration, its efforts to secur markets abroad, and its attitude to the State, is the policy of the 'great banks'—the term usually applied to the eight large Berlin banking houses, Schaaffhausensche Bankverein, Darmstädter Bank, Diskontogesellschaft Berliner Handelsgesellschaft, Mitteldeutsche Kreditbank Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank and Nationalbank.

Despite surface appearances indicating a number of independent bodies each working for its own hand, there is in reality an astonishing harmony among the German banks, and this accounts for much of their success in extending Deutschtum everywhere. They require no great clearing-house system. And this community of interests becomes more marked as the branches of these banks abroad secure a firmer and firmer footing in international finance, and it contrasts noticeably with our own 'competition for paper,' that is, for the business of negotiating bills, and our general lack of cohesion. One 'great bank' usually holds shares in several of the others; and since 1903 every one of them has an account, Dauernde Beteiligung an anderen Banken' (permanent share-interest in other banks). This is called the Beteiligungssystem, a term also applied sometimes to a bank's interests in industrial and commercial houses. In the balance sheet of the Diskontogesellschaft, published in the 'Banking Almanac,' 1914, the following items appear under 'Assets': 'Syndicates, securities, etc., 4,191,9321. Participation in other banks, 2,833,4527.' No items of this kind appear in any of the English balance sheets of the same publication. Herr Riesser (p. 614) and Herr Obst (II, 455, 475) lay considerable stress on the harmony of the relations existing between the 'great banks.' The says that the great bank' views its functions as forming one unified programme-the promotion of economic, national, and State interests. This view raises its whole influence far above that of the small or mediocre institutions, which pursue a mere dividend policy. According to Herr Obst there is in the German banking world a sense of common aims, which creates an intense feeling of joint interest (Solidaritätsgefühl); and this contributes largely to expand German interests everywhere.

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It was the crisis of 1901 that first revealed to the outsider how closely German banks had become involved in the promotion and formation of companies, and how rast was the number of industrial securities which they held. But concentration in German industry had set in long before the banks became its great feeders. The Kartells having forced the banks to strengthen their basis of operations, the initiative in the matter of

organising industrial concentration now proceeds fr the banks. Herr Grabower (pp. 110-6) and H Jeidels (pp. 114-6, 152-4) give many interesting particul of the interlocking of directorates and the recipro influence exerted by bank and industrial combine. H Weber (p. 338) says that the brilliant development Germany's foreign trade would not have been even c ceivable without the vigorous intervention of the ban which at an early period began to pursue 'an indust policy of large scope,' in marked contrast with attitude of English banks to trade and industry. latter devoted their attention to banking operations the strict sense, or what writers like Riesser and Jeid call rein bankgeschäftliche Tätigkeit.

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It is in pursuing this programme of combined ba policy' and 'industry-policy,' that the German bar have been most successful in 'penetrating' other co tries. They work along five main lines.

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(1) They establish abroad branches or daught institutions for the German industrial firm. The Dresdr Bank not only financed, but was the prime mover establishing, the Russian Maschinenfabrik Hartman which is purely a Chemnitz concern. Several Germ banks co-operated to establish in Italy a daughter-socie of the Schuckert electrical house.

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(2) They found altogether new industries. cietà Elettro-Chimica, in Rome, was founded by t Dresdner Bank, and the Compania Viscaina de Ele tricidad, in Bilbao, by the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft

(3) They seek an interest in existing foreign concer Since the war a good deal has been written about t German metal 'octopus,' and especially about its cont of the Australian metal market. The most concre expression of its pre-war influence is to be found in t necessity of such a measure as the Non-Ferrous Met Industry Act, 1918, and in the contract between t Australian mining companies and the British Imperi Government, under which the latter agrees to purcha for the period of the war and ten years thereafter th entire production from Jan. 1, 1918. But behind th activities of Aron Hirsch und Sohn, and of Halbersta and Frankfort-on-the-Main, stood the great Germa banks, whose agents each specialised in some particula

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