Page:Imperialism (Lenin).djvu/127

Rh and points out that Britain and France have set their feet in the same path. Schilder considers that five industrial nations have become "very typical creditor nations": Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. Holland does not appear on this list simply because it is "slightly industrialised." The United States are creditors only of other American countries.

"Britain is being gradually transformed from an industrial State into a creditor State. In spite of the absolute increase in industrial production and export, the relative importance of revenue, from interest and dividends, issues and speculations is on the increase when the whole national economy is taken into account. In my opinion, it is precisely this fact which is at the base of imperialist expansion. The creditor is more firmly tied to the debtor than the merchant is to the buyer."(Schulze-Gaevernitz).

Concerning Germany, A. Lansburg, the editor of Die Bank wrote the following in 1911 in an article entitled, Germany as a Bondholder Nation: "People laugh willingly in Germany at the tendency which France has to become a Bondholder Nation. But they forget that, so far as the middle class is concerned, the situation in Germany is becoming more and more like that in France."

The Rentier State is the state of parasitic decaying capitalism, and this circumstance cannot fail to influence all the social-political relations of the country affected; and particularly the two fundamental tendencies of the working class movement. To make this stand out most clearly, let us listen to Hobson, whose testimony inspires more