GERMANY’S MIDDLE 'GLASS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 September 1924, Page 8

GERMANY’S MIDDLE 'GLASS.

PLIGHT OF INTELLECTUALS

COARSENEE MINDS

. .While a few thousand wealthy -families in Germany are daily adding to their wealth, the masses of the (people-, and especially the great middle class, including a large proportion ..of the country’s intellectuals, are undergoing unknown hardships in this period of readjustment after :the Great War. This at any rate is the view of Mr Frank A. Ross, of the University of Wisconsin.

Germany’s intellectuals are casting about in supplements ary income. A number; of students were tided over several weeks by taking the parts of soldiers in a film production, “Frederick the Great.” A pi ofessor of literature, who had been an exchange professor of literature in this country at one time, asked, me with tears ,in his eyes: “Can you get me some work typewriting, translating, absolutely anything?” The principals of the two higher schools in a small hi Northern Bavaria could not :aftord to buy wood for the .winter, so they went into the forest with their wives, cut and hauled it themselves. One day 1 returned to my pension to find the lobby thronged. I asked the porter if it were a delegation of foreign visitors, fo,r they all wore frock coats, though shabby ones. hen a whole country is in a desperate struggle for existence the main emphasis is placed on production, and all forms of intellectual and artistic culture are at a discount. One of the pathetic incidents of Germany’s poverty is the marked decline of interest in literature and the things of the spirit. Art and music are among the professions hardest hit. Few people can longer afford concerts, plays and operas. '-The nation feels that literature, art and philosophy can wait. Science and invention are moribund. Engineers are dispensed with. Lawyers ur.e briefless, for people, have neither the time non- the- money to carry on legal disputes. To-day people cannot take music lessons or drawing lessons. Pictures are undreamed of luxuries, so artists suffer terribly. Few people buy books, and though books are expensive, there is little profit for the writer in a domestic sale. Even the newspaper is shared with neighbours. The labour exchanges note a great afflux of women seeking work. On the other hand, there is a rapid decrease in the number or women entering the 1 universities, for if a family has a son and a daughter it is the son who is l sent. The people are stripped to the bare necessities—foea, clothing, and shelter. Nor is that all. Preoccupation with the needs of the body coarsens the mind, and renders it insensitive to finer things. The body’s needs are insistent, but the mind may starve without the possessor knowing it. Moreover, the experience! of hunger- leaves a horror of starvation in the minds of the people.