"delicately" puts it. Krupp in Germany, Schneider in France, Armstrong in England, are instances of firms closely connected with all-powerful banks and governments, whom it is not easy to "avoid" when arranging a loan.
France, in making loans to Russia, by the commercial treaty of the 16th September, 1905, secured concessions to run till 1917. She did the same thing when the Franco-Japanese commercial treaty was made on the 19th August, 1911. The tariff war between Austria and Serbia, which lasted with a seven-months' interval, from 1906 to 1911, was partly caused by competition between Austria and France for keeping Serbia supplied with war material. In January, 1912, M. Paul Deschanel said in the Chamber of Deputies, that French firms from 1908 to 1911 had supplied 45,000,000 francs' worth of war material to Serbia.
A report from the Austro-Hungarian Consul at Sao-Paulo (Brazil), states: "The construction of Brazilian railways is chiefly done by capital from France, Belgium, Britain and Germany. The countries involved secure orders for railway material during the preliminary financial negotiations connected with railroad construction."
Finance-capital thus extends its tentacles literally all over the world. Banks founded in the colonies, or their branches, play an important part in these operations. German imperialists look with envy on the old colonising nations, which in this respect are "well established." Great Britain had, in 1904, 50 colonial banks with 2,279 branches (in 1910, there were 72 banks with 5,449 branches); France had 20 with 136 branches;
