Excerpt from War Costs and Their Financing: A Study of the Financing of the War and the After-War Problems of Debt and Taxation The effort has been made in this volume to present in broad outline the salient features of war finance and some of the financial problems now confronting the United States and the leading nations of Europe. Although it is still too early to assess accurately the relative importance of various economic and financial measures and events, there is a certain gain in recording them while they are still fresh in mind. Many events were so extraordinary, and the measures taken to cope with them so unprecedented, that much time and study will be required finally to determine their part in the World War. But that they played an important role in determining the outcome of the struggle is clear. The "silver bullets" were equally decisive with those of lead or steel in deciding the victory. Never before were the differences between a good and a vicious theory of war finance so important and so far-reaching, for never before have war expenditures reached such stupendous figures. It had been hoped that the wide ramifications of international credit and trade would constitute an effectual guarantee against war, but this hope was rudely dashed. Again, when war actually began, it was confidently predicted that the financial exhaustion of the belligerents would bring it to an end after a few months, but events proved these prophecies also false. A constantly recurrent problem throughout the whole war was the question as to whence came the enormous sums which were expended with such reckless prodigality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.