THE WORLD’S WELTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3147, 11 December 1922, Page 7

THE WORLD’S WELTER.

(By Mercurius.) iSime time ago the writer of theso notes in the Oamaru Mail drew attention to the fact that Germany had sold paper marks to the people of Britain and the dominions of a value of about £200,000,000 Mercurius surmised that if marks to this value were sold in Britain and the dominions it would be safe to estimate that Germany had also sold to the rest of the world paper money 7 to an equal value. That would give a total of 400,000,000 marks soldi by Germany outside her own country. As Germany had paid' the Allies in re- * parations only €415,000.000 —a little more than the total of the marks she had sold to foreigners—she really had paid them ß * nothing at all, inasmuch as she had sold worthless paper to traders and speculators and obtained valuable currencies in return for a thing that she would not take back in payment for the goods she exported. This was a patent swindle on the part of the Germans, who presumably could not pay the reparations as they became due, but set out to swindle the allied peoples of their money by means of paper that men intended should have no value, because after paying for imported goods with them they would not accept them in payment for goods she exported. Besides, Germany sold bales of these “scraps of paper” to outside speculators, who bought them in the belief that Germany would eventually give greater stability to the value of the mark. Germany, however, has not tried to stabilise the mark, because, no doubt, it pays her better to act the part of a knave than to be honest. Mercurius, how. cer, made a. mistake in his estimate of the value of the marks sold to foreign peoples, for the New York correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph says that the American people have lost £400,000,000 by the purchase of German marks, bought at prices ranging from six cents (three pence) downwards. Brother Jonathan is hold to be astonishingly cute, but on this occasion Fritz was much too clever for him. According to this latest set of figures Europe and America have been taken down bv Germany to the tune of about £600,000,000 or £BOO,000,000, part of which she has paid back to them in the form of reparations and the other half, she has nimbly. if dishonestly, put in her pocket. Vet the Americans are not to lie fleeced thus patently by the Germans. Mr Franklin Roosevelt, former Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy at the head of a company, to be formed in New York, having lor its object the drawing together of all the holders of these marks. The purpose is to raise, ai capital 1 of £12,000, to pay the expenses connected with the purchase of real estate and industrial concerns in Germany. The paper mark has no value whatever outside Germany, but inside that country it has a vahie that the Americans intend to utilise for the purpose of getting part of the money back that they feel thiey have been cheated out of. The Americans intend to try to get even with Germany, but Germany is on her beam ends, and is going from bad toi worse, so that by thfe time the Americans are prepared to act Germany may have Hied her schedule in bankruptcy, or what is equivalent to' that, in which case property and industries may be about as valuable as the mark, and the mark, even in Germany, may b© as valueless as it is outside Germany. In the meantime the mark, which is worth about one shilling, has slumped to 33,000 to' the British pound. The 1 face value of 33,000 German marks before the war would be equal to £1,650 in British money, but their total 1 value at the present time is 20s. No one will! now touch a German mark, for it has absolutely no value'. A mark is not equal in value to the lucifer match that might be used to bum it.

Lenin, like a jack-in-the-box, has popped 1 up again. Some time ago Lenin was reported 1 to bo in the toils of the grim Reaper, with hut an indifferent chance of being able to escape, the swish of his scythe. Yet he has made an official pronouncement to the Russian Trade Unions, in which he says that “the refusal of capitalist countries to grant credits to Russia impedes the revival of industry. The restoration, of private- • property is demanded 1 of us. Rut we cannot give way, and' w© shall not give- way. The long and arduous process of revival will require enormous expenditure of energy, but the thought that Capitalism is overthrown will lend strength to the working classes.” If such a pronouncement as that made by Lenin is calculated to tend strength l tithe working classes- of Russia) then these sons of toil must approximate- very closely to an ■ agglomeration of doddering idiots, for it is not denied that Russia has overthrown Capitalism, hut at the same) time she has not a penny piece to Mess herself with, and is in a state of economic and industrial chaos. For what then was Capitalism overthrown? Was it to bring Russia to grovel in the dirt, foodies?, moneyless, and without hope of evolving from within her own people the means of procuring .sufficient food to keep body and soul together ? Let .us admit that Russia has overthrown Capitalism, yet Lenin says that Russia cannot dd without Capitalism—the Capitalism of other countries. Russia, wants capital to carry on the functions of the country, yet Lenin told them that barter was the paradise of the worker, but the- worker of Russia, sees less in- this sort of paradise- to- attract ham than he does in the money of capitalistic countries. He has bowled over Capitalism in Russia, and with it every incentive to work. He has now no money and no- food:. He has made one appeal to the world 1 to feed 1 his starving women and children, and the world responded. He is now about to make another similar appeal. A late cable says that the Russians themselves are alarmed l at th© impending calamity, but why do they not get rid of Lenin and Trotsky as an experiment? Capitalistic countries have money and food, and this very fact is the outstanding reason why the same workers in Britain will have nothing to do with the Russian Third Inter- \ national©. The Russian leaders have tried hard enough to seduce 1 British workers into a general support of Comm union ism, even to the extent of subsidising a London daily newspaper to urge their cause. However, the very words used by Lenin arc sufficient to condemn the cause of Communism, for his appeal for credits is to those countries that have not followed the example of Russia, and are thus able to tend money and supply food. What hope is there of regenerating Russia by hard wor kwhen the worker gets nothing for his work? Everything is divided in common, and the sloth lives as well, or rather starves as well, as the industrious man ; but the industrious man is not fool enough to grow food for the ragged and unwashed loafer. We have a few people jn Britain and Australia, and even in New Zealand, who have succumbed to the opiate of Communism, hut they aro so few that they have been unable to fill their Cave of Adullam, and'no self-respecting worker would care to breathe the evilsmelling atmosphere that pervades this twentieth century dug-out.