382 3Ir. A. W. Ward [March 8, 



of minting unions formed among the Circles of the Empire, or among 

 princes and cities wiiose territories were mutually adjacent. What 

 was the meaning of this disunion, and what were the opportunities 

 of mischief thus supplied for the debasing and circulation of base 

 coin to the Kipinrs and Wippers, as they were called — a fraternity 

 which, as a strict matter of fact, included the highest minting 

 authorities from the Emperor down to the, to whom the name was 

 applied, very humbler practitioners of the singularly easy process — 

 may lie gathered from the list given by Dr. Shaw of the independent 

 mints in existence in one or two of the Circles of the Empire, by 

 way of example. In the Lower Ehenish Circle, if I have counted 

 right, they amounted to && — including, besides temporal princes and 

 cities, 13 counts and 7 barons, and not less than 8 bishops and 7 

 abbots. The facilities for sharp practice and fraud were increased 

 by every one of these mints, inasmuch as it was precisely by means 

 of their multiplicity that the Kippers and Wijjpers made their profits, 

 systematically buying up the better coins, circulating more of the 

 same nominal value coined out of the reminted silver, and making 

 their profit out of the balance. (It is only fortunate that while the 

 evil was at its height in the earlier part of the War coining was 

 still a comparatively expensive process, till the use of machinery was 

 introduced into it about the middle of the century — or this profit 

 would have been still more tempting.) The value attached to a 

 coin in commercial dealings came to depend upon the individual who 

 tendered or accepted it in payment ; an almost universal mutual 

 distrust ensued, and the very basis of all business dealings between 

 man and man, as well as between authority and authority, and com- 

 munity and community, was cut away. To the uncertainty which 

 war in all its forms inevitably produces, and which with a shifting 

 war like this could not l)e otherwise than constant, the condition of 

 the money market, which was rather a money scramble or a money 

 chaos, and which helped to send what good money there was in the 

 country out of it in a steady current, thus formed a signal contribu- 

 tion. The condition of things was one in which trade and industry 

 could not pick up, and in which profits could be made only by those 

 whose combined resources of capital were peculiar to themselves ; 

 but it would take me too far to go into the special subject of the 

 fortunes of the Jews in the course of the Great War. 



Enough has been said, though much more might have been added, 

 as to the material disadvantages to the Empire which the War inflicted 

 upon it or intensified. It is obvious that these could not but be 

 accompanied by experiences in the intellectual and moral life of the 

 nation not less grave and disheartening, and enduringly associated in 

 its traditions with the memories of its long day of trouble. 



Beyond a doubt, the decay of the Universities, which had until 

 recently stood for so much in the progress of the intellectual life of 

 the people, and upon whose recovery of their former position the re- 



