less, when it is clear that capitalistic production can, if it is given a fair chance, do much better for us in the future as it learns and applies its lessons.
Industrial and agricultural development had also been assisted by an extremely ingenious financial machinery, and a great growth and improvement in banking, which provided credit and currency for the community with remarkable success; during the last half century before the war, the financial machinery was perfecting itself into a state of extraordinary elasticity and adaptability, and meeting with steadily growing composure the industrial crises which the speculative habits of man, and the risks inevitable from our present industrial system, necessarily produced. A machinery of investment and a market in the debts and securities of public bodies and public companies, had also been developed with great ingenuity by the Stock Exchanges of the world. Whoever wanted to borrow money and invest it in industry found ready listeners—only too ready in some cases—whether they applied to the banks for short credits, or to the investing public for permanent investments, or invited speculators to try their luck. Capital flowed with wonderful
