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o n Weilwi'rtsshaft r\	c r. Q

o U Kiel	^	3- 0

INTRODUCTION

This essay traces back to a running comment
upon the actual course of our war financing made
day after day to the bare handful of students into
which the Economic Seminary of the Johns Hop-
kins University had in the early months of the
nation’s entry into the great struggle swiftly re-
solved itself. Any worth that the study may
possess is thus, in the first instance, to be shared
with this little group since, to a man, drawn into
the country’s service.

It is never easy to write critically of current fiscal
practices, least of all when the nation’s existence
hangs in the balance. Many facts are uncollected,
much material may not be made accessible, and
from first to last the writer is held and tied by his
wish to help and not hurt. Yet if his inquiry is to
serve any present use, the student cannot wait until
present policies have become historic records.
With the certainty of some incompleteness, at the
risk of unfortunate oversight or avoidable error,
he will offer that which he has rather than await the
comfortable detail of the full event.

This is the mood in which the present study is
sent forth. Sound and admirable in the main, our
war borrowing has been marred here and there
by serious error, injuring us now and certain if

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