ABSTRACT

After 1870 there was developed on a large scale an unprecedented situation, and the economic condition of Europe became during the next fifty years unstable and peculiar. With the growth of the European population there were more emigrants on the one hand to till the soil of the new countries, and, on the other, more workmen were available in Europe to prepare the industrial products. The whole of Europe east of the Rhine thus fell into the German industrial orbit, and its economic life was adjusted accordingly. Europe was so organized socially and economically as to secure the maximum accumulation of capital. The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. Even before the war, however, the equilibrium thus established between old civilizations and new resources was being threatened.