The Wrecker of the German Mark

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 111, 13 May 1933, Page 16

The Wrecker of the German Mark

ilerr Wilhelm Cuno, the former Ger^ man Chancellor, who ■will go down in history as the man who reduced the value of the mark to extinction, died recently at his home at Aunmhle. He was fifty-seven years of age. It ivas' not as 'a successful business man who became chairman of- the Ham-burg-Ainerika Line that he will be remembered, but as the one who tried to drive the French from the Ruhr coalbasin with printing presses turning out bank-notes night and fay^ as his only weapons. Those who lived in Germany during the perilous months from November, 1922, to August, 1923, can recall .them only as a period filled with the hideous absurdities of a nightmare. When it became clear that the French intended to occupy the Ruhr as a means of compelling Germany to fulfil her agreement to pay certain reparations in kind, President Ebert asked Herr Cuno to form a Cabinet. On the French occupying Essen Cuno's Cabinet, flung millions of pounds' worth of bullion on to the gold market, with the result that for a week or. two the mal-k actually rose in value. But soon it became evident, that the entire contents of the Beichsbank'a purse could not permanently peg the German currency. The sale of gold was accordingly stopped and the note presses were set to work. , . Until the Cuno Government collapsed, together with the mark, practically the entire cost\of running the State was met by pure and undiluted paper inflation. Effective steps to supply the Treasury from normal sources were not even attempted. Practically the only people to pay any direct imposts whatever were the workmen and other employees, whose income-tax was deducted from their wages and salaries before these, were paid. As the mark sank from 100,000 th

to 1,000,000 th of its nominal value big landowners boasted that they were paying the interest on heavy mortgages with the eggs from one hen or the apples froni a single tree (says a writer in the "Daily Telegraph"). While the value was falling in ever greater drops from 1,000,000 th to 1,000,000,000 th of its nominal level, it was no uncommon thing to see taxis drive away from banks crammed to the roof with bundles of bank-notes tied up as unceremoniously as if they had been waste paper. In spite of this fantastic procedure, there were moments when the total gold value of the entire German currency did not exceed £5,000,000. At the end it.was difficult to believe that one was -not living in .a ■world of dreams. ' The final stage was like the dying squeak of an inflated rubber pig. Though the dollar had become the real unit of pecuniary value for large sections of the German population, the printing works commandeered by the Government could not, though printing without a pause day and night, turn out marks fast enough to keep pace with the depreciation. Finally each employer of labour at any distance from q«e of these printing works was compelled to issue.his own paper money- in agreement with the local tradesmen as the only possible means-of paying his employees and enabling them to live. When the mark was eventually destroyed and Herr Cuno returned to the management of the Hamburg-Amerika Company, Germany did what she could have done long before —put her State finance in order and started oft* with a brand-new gold standard currency. Whether Herr' Cuno's extraordinary financial policy was a deliberate manoeuvre or merely the result of recklessness is still a secret hidden from the public.