HARD AT WORK

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 January 1925, Page 5

HARD AT WORK

GERAIANY TO-DAY

A STABILISED CURRENCY.

In Germany- to-day there is a stabilised currency, an entire absence of the one-time warlike spirit that was notable in Berlin, a general desire to placate the Britisher, and ah all-round impression of prosperity, undisturbed by war or its aftermath. These are the impressions gathered in a brief tour of Northern Germany by Air A. T. Markman, secretary to tiie Postal Department, who returned recently from representing New Zealand at the Postal Congress held in Stockholm. .

The outstanding impression gained by Mr Markham (says the Dominion.) was that there was no difficulty, as far as the tourist and traveller was concerned, in regard to the currency in Germany. The mark had been stabilised, the renten mark being valued at about Is ljd English money. At the Hotel Windsor, in the Unter den Linden, near the famous. Hotel Adlon, where he stayed, the tariff for _ a double room' was about £2 a day, with 10 per cent Government tax, which is levied on all hotel guests, and a further 10 per cent for “service.” Travellers do not come in contact much with the depreciated paper currency, except in such instances; as the purchase of newspapers or such-like, when change might be given in “thousands.” He found the attention at the hotels excellent, and everywhere a desire to please and evince friendliness towards Britishers. There was very little unemployment visible, and the number of those out of work, according to official statistics, was less than half the number unemployed in Great Britain. A glance at the countryside, on the journey from Stralsund, on the Baltic, showed that farmers, women as well as men, were all hard at work in the fields. In the manufacturing quarter in Berlin, everyone was working at high pressure. Tn the' shops and hotels money was being spent freely 7, theatres were crowded with long Queues before the commencing hour. People attended in evening dress in large numbers, and there was every apparent evidence of prosperity. Dinner in the hotel in the evening cost about 13s 6d; hotel life was found to be. more expensive than in America. A uniform in the streets of Berlin was an exceedingly rare sight. In fact, people with whom he conversed during his three-days’ visit to the German capital made him understand that they were desirous of forgetting the war and any incident connected with it.