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 people that recognized these things at the beginning of a war and had sense and courage to apply them would pay for the war as it happened.

But neither here nor in any other country was there even a distant likeness to an ideal statesman in charge of war finance:

In France and Germany no attempt was made in the early years of the war to meet any part of its cost by taxation. France with her richest provinces invaded had plenty of excuse. In Germany the docility, discipline and intense patriotism of the people gave a wonderful opportunity to its Government for financing the war soundly: but it was not taken because the Government preferred to finance by borrowing on the assumption that it was certain to win the war and recover its cost, and a great deal more, from its vanquished foes, rather than by "increasing the burdens of the people." Apparently it thought in its wisdom that it could lighten these burdens by bad finance. In fact the event inevitably showed that in Germany, in spite of the absence of taxation