"CRISIS TAX."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 7

"CRISIS TAX."

First Emergency Decree of New German Government.

ATTEMPT TO BALANCE BUDGET

BERLIN, June 14.

The German Government's first emergency decree imposes a "crisis tax" in the form of so-called contributions to unemployment funds which will vary, according to the taxpayer's income, from 1J to 6£ per cent.

Also imposed is a salt tax of 20 per cent, estimated to yield £2,000,000. Dole payments to the unemployed are to be cut to the extent of £35.000,000. War pensions also are to be reduced.

It is understood that the ban on Nazi troops is to be removed.

The Bavarian Premier, Herr Held, has informed Herr von Papen that if he sends a Reich commissioner to Munich, as proposed for Prussia, the police will arrest him.

The Cabinet has completed a draft Budget balanced at £410,000,000 at par, or £60,000,000 less than in 1931.

The German Chancellor, Herr von Pa pen, at the Lausanne Conference will demand the complete annulment of reparation payments. However, he will avoid pronouncements irritating to France or likely to check the understanding between that country and Germany.

UNKNOWN.

Germany Marching to Strange Goal. STRENGTH AND DISUNITY. BERLIN, June 0. With giant strides, Germany continues to march towards a constitutional and a political unknown. Nobody knows whether the issue will be an autocratic monarchy, a junker dictatorship, a Hohenzollern republic, or the anarchic disruption of the Reich into its component States.

Half of the country has its face turned towards the legendary vision of an orderly, prosperous, powerful, happy Germany, of the pre-war golden age. People thinking thus associate the Republic with the humiliations of defeat, the horrors of inflation, and the degradation of tribute money.

The other half sees salvation in Republicanism, verging more and more towards the full Socialist ideal.

If the von Papen-von Schleicher Government does not win the coming election, it may seize power and govern autocratically through the Reichswehr police, or, possibly, the Brown Army, which it hopes to absorb.

Its power to remain in command is another matter. The Republican spirit and the Socialist forces are so strong that a Junker Government would be sitting on a revolutionary volcano. General von Schleicher is superior to Herr Hitler as a tactician, and may steal the allegiance of the Nazi stnrm troops. His manifesto is a powerful weapon for capturing the support of a despairing people.

BACK TO MONARCHY ?

GERMANY'S NEW PATH.

LONDON, June 9.

It is calculated that the majority of members of the Reichstag would accommodate themselves to a return of the Hohenzollerns, states the Berlin correspondent of the "News Chronicle." The Monarchist sentiment of the next Reichstag is bound to be far stronger. When and how the issue will be raised, depends upon the Minister of Defence, General von Schleicher, whom the "Berliner Tageblatt" calls Germany's shadow Kaiser. Until he gives the signal, no exiled German Royalty will cross the frontier.

The Republicans feel that the formal challenge to the Republic cannot be long delayed. Nationalist and Nazi propaganda since 1920 has described the Republic as the symbol of German weakness, and the schools have stressed the power and prestige of Germany under Frederick the Great and his successors.