The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1908.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 6

The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1908.

With a not too remote possibility of war in the Balkan Peninsula, a i country restless and angry Mjratarioai with the irresponsible exJ'allry. überanoe of its own

monarch, and the imperative need of finding fresh sources of revenue, the veriest tyro in politics would have been pardoned had he asserted that Germany would not at such a moment deliberately seek for causes of trouble with France. It is really not possible for the normal intelligence to grasp the meaning or to seek an explanation of German policy. The Press of France, Great Britain, and Russia are at one in this regard. If an apology be the indispensable condition precedent to a review of any matter in dispute, then, as the ‘ Debats ’ says, arbitration becomes “ a meaningless farce.” Germany's reason for so preposterous a demand can only be interpreted by unbiased outside opinion as a deliberate provocation to a breach of the peace. The German attitude is the more amazing when it is remembered that there are now before the Reichstag proposals with the avowed object of bringing in an additional £25,000,000 of revenue to the Imperial Exchequer. The money is badly needed. “ T on cannot have an omelet without breaking eggs,” Napoleon cynically observed to his staff as he surveyed the field of slaughter after Borodino. And Germany is learning that she cannot have a big navy equal to that of the mightiest and wealthiest nation in the world without paying for it. The Imperial Debt amounted only to £BOO,OOO in 1877, by 1900 it had grown to £IIS’,COO,OCO, and since then it has increased by another £100,000,000, with an annual interest charge of £8,000.000. The borrowings of the Imperial Government have not alone handicapped those of the Federated German States, but are as yet in their comparative infancy, if German naval and other expenditure is to be carried on. The Imperial Chancellor has now to raise a further annual sum of £25,000,000, and to do it he must resort to expedients that will press hardly upon the general mass of the people. Spirits, beer, cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco are to bear the larger part of the new burdens; the State will assume the monopoly of the production of raw spirits • there are to be heavier death and legacy duties and on the estates of intestate persons; an excise duty on wine is also promised ; but, most startling of all gas and electric light and newspaper advertisements are to bo taxed for the first time. These items in the Chancellor’s list indicate the stress to which the German Government are reduced. The taxation of newspaper advertisements is a decided reversion to barbarism. The English Press in the bad old days of 1701 had to pay a shilling tax on each advertisement received, and it was not till well on in the nineteenth century that the Press were freed from this and the like oppressive and restrictive charges. That Germany has to find a source of revenue in so reactionary a proposal indicates in

a measure-the greatness of her present necessities. Wo anticipate, however, that strong opposition will come both fpom the Socialists and the Liberals - to some, at least, if not to most, of Prince Bulow’s plans. The most interesting and surprising aspect of the situation is that at an hour when a strong appeal is to be made to the people personally to suffer sacrifice on behalf of the Fatherland the Government should go out of their way to offend a great and sensitive nation. How deeply and passionately French sentiment has been stirred may be gathered from the ovation accorded in the lobby of the Chamber of Deputies to M. Delcasse, exMinister of Foreign Affairs. That statesman had been long under a cloud, and has bitter enemies among his own countrymen. But the fact that his downfall in 1905 is believed to have been duo to German pressure and to a threat to invade Lorraine has reawakened his old popularity, and made him the recipient of a distinctly anti-German demonstration. We presume, though with diffidence, that a compromise will be reached in this as in previous maladroit utterances and movements from a similar quarter, but the question suggests itself : Is Europe for ever to be kept on the brink of a precipice?