34 
DEVELOPMENT 
banks in Berlin is £62,500,000 ; reserves 
£19,567,000, and deposits £243,000,000. 
It may be of interest to learn that this remarkable 
economic development seems to have changed the 
views even of the most exclusive German nobility, 
as regards being connected with trade and com 
mercial enterprises. Not long ago, nobody with 
blue blood in his veins deemed it worthy of his 
noble birth to take an active part in any commercial 
and industrial concern. However, recent history 
shows that two enterprising princes, endowed with 
huge fortunes, have not only assumed the manage 
ment of some important works, which were 
inherited property, but have also embarked in a 
vast number of different industrial and financial 
enterprises, which caused them at times serious 
financial embarrassment; this princely com 
bination is known by the name of “ Princes Trust.” 
Still more astonishing may it appear that it is 
no longer an uncommon or startling event for 
members of the nobility to enter into matrimonial 
relations with circles which have accumulated 
large fortunes in trade or industry, with so-called 
upstarts. Evidently the power of wealth has 
affected conceptions of previously existing 
prejudices and preconceived notions of centuries. 
There can be no doubt that the colossal increase 
in the gold production of the world, amounting