GERMAN CITIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20142, 11 January 1940, Page 11

GERMAN CITIES

SERIOUS REVENUE LOSS FACING BANKRUPTCY LONDON, Dec. 19. The wholesale closing down of "nonessential” industries in Germany is proving disastrous to the civic finances of many large municipalities. These derive a substantial part of their revenue from an income-tax on local industry. Cities which depend on the textile, shipping and 'eather industries are faced with bankruptcy, for these arc the industries which have been most severely hit by the war. Even where factories and businesses have not closed down, their taxable income has been drastically reduced by rationing of their raw materials, A widespread demand for State subvention of hard-hit municipalities is voiced by the Koelnischer Zeitung. It points out that the local burdens of the war are at present being unevenly borne, because particular industries arc grouped in certain areas. Centres of the non-essential manufactures, therefore, suffer disproportionately. “Naturally,” adds the Cologne paper, “any help from the Reich will be conditional on the municipality having exhausted every possilvlity of making ends meet. Abov? all, all public service and expenditure not essential to the conduct of the war must be stopped.”