vision of clothing, of food, of means of transport, of chemicals, of basic raw material like coal and iron. The State has in each country become a customer of boundless requirements and immense resources, and so far from "countless business men and firms" being ruined, the prosperity of the capitalist class has never been so great as now.
This is true of all belligerent and nearly all neutral countries, from Japan to Holland and from Sweden to the United States. The total sum already expended by the belligerent States on and in connection with the war probably exceeds by now ten thousand millions sterling, and by far the greater part of it—that is, deducting pay to the troops and salaries to officials at home—has gone into the pockets of the-capitalist class of the world. Armament and munition makers, clothing manufacturers, coalowners and iron-masters, shippers, motor car manufacturers, food growers, and all the innumerable hosts of army contractors of various kinds—all have filled and overfilled their pockets from this inexhaustible golden deluge. Everywhere, in belligerent and neutral countries, a new class of millionaires has arisen, a new money aristocracy, a new oligarchy of nouveaux riches. From every capital of the world we hear reports of unusual displays of luxury, wildest orgies and debaucheries, of money spent like water in night clubs and fashionable gaming resorts. We hear them from Berlin and Vienna, from Petrograd and Paris, from Stockholm and Amsterdam. The organ of our Austrian comrades recently devoted an article to the portraying of these nouveaux riches—how their agents are active whenever an old castle comes upon the market, how the architects are busily evolving new plans of town and country houses with a multitude of towers and turrets, and how the large drapery firms are getting in stocks of gloves of large sizes. In our own country, which likes to avoid ostentatiousness, one only has to make a round of the most expensive restaurants in London, visit a few public sales, look in on an evening in some of the fashionable music halls, in order to feel the presence of the new rich; and when we hear bishops declaiming upon the immorality prevailing at the present day, and read reports of police raids on night clubs and other institutions of a similar kind, we know what to think of the rest.
The war, contrary to all expectations, has proved a true gold mine to the capitalist class throughout the world. While
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