EUROPEAN EXPANSION AND WORLD POLITICS 
politics became international politics, embracing every state 
and every land. 
Fortunately, during the years 1870 to 1890 the world 
was undergoing a remarkable financial and economic de- 
velopment that would make possible this world diplomacy 
of the future. In Germany an industrial revolution took 
place, which dotted the land with factories and increased 
its trade to over $1,700,000,000 in 1890. France paid off 
her $1,000,000,000 war indemnity within two years; and 
she underwent an equally astonishing development, loaned 
Germany $250,000,000 for industrial improvements, and 
became the banker of Europe. The extensive British trade 
grew from £547,000,000 in 1870 to £749,000,000 by 1890, 
and the production of manufactured goods in the United 
States from $4,000,000,000 to $9,000,000,000 in the same 
period. 
The total production of gold in the world between 1870 
and 1890 amounted to $2,210,870,000; and the yearly prod- 
uct of silver grew from $39,000,000 in 1850 to $135,000,- 
000 in 1883, and reached $217,700,000 by 1904. By 1900 
the wealth of European states was reputed to be approxi- 
mately $246,600,000,000; and private resources were ac- 
cumulating with equal rapidity. In 1870 the Bank of 
England, the Bank of France, and a few private institutions 
in the capitals of those states and in New York City, were 
furnishing most of the capital for foreign investment; but 
by 1907 there were twenty-one private banks in England, 
France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, which 
possessed a total of over $2,480,000,000 of capital, surplus 
and deposits. In December of 1909, the Comptroller of the 
Treasury reported that the total resources of the banks of 
the United States reached the stupendous sum of $21,100,- 
000,000. To grasp the value and significance of this mar- 
velous growth in capital, one has only to recall the rapid