GERMANY'S FINANCIAL MOBILIZATION.

The article focuses on the financial mobilization strategy in Germany. The rapid industrial and commercial progress achieved by the German empire almost continuously since the middle of the 1890s was naturally followed by severe strain on credit resources which failed to allow for the possibilities of a political crisis. When in 1905, however, the first differences arose between France and Germany over the Morocco affair, the German government became aware of the dangers of such a heavy strain upon its monetary and credit system, and the problem of a financial mobilization was at once taken up. These facts should be borne in mind in order to understand the course of German banking legislation since 1906 and the banking policy of the German Reichsbank. In 1908, when the time approached to renew the charter of the Reichsbank, an official inquiry was held with the purpose of disclosing all means and ways to help in the policy of strengthening the German monetary system. Simultaneously with this legislation, which had in view the strengthening of the Reichsbank, German banking policy was extended to the private joint stock banks. Owing to this far-sighted policy credit, conditions in Germany improved materially.