WAR PROFITEERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17471, 15 May 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR PROFITEERS.

A SCOURGE IN EUROPE. 1

BY MRS. JULIAN GRANDE. BUM PESTH". via Geneva. March" 6. It is by travelling through what are still known as the Central Empires that tho unprofitableness of war and its demoralising effects are most vividly realised. There ,is still, I fancy, a prevailing notion that war is a bad business for the loser only, which is at any rate partly duo to the different way in wljich war affects vectors and vanquished, Thus vanquished nations, at least all who were worth anything, have always restricted their use of luxuries, whereas victor nations have'always been inclined to be extravagant after a war, thinking that their victories dispensed them from any measures of prudence, restraint, or saving. Now, however, both victor and vanquished seem to be finding that war does not pay. Both are realising that war does not create anything substantially valuable. In the past it may have happened that some nation has, in a sense, benefited by war, just as an individual may, in a sense, benefit by pocket-picking. But the individual merely transfers to his pocket what ought to be in someone else's pocket, and produces nothing. Similarly in the past a nation can only have acquired wealth which ought to have been that of sOme other nation, and did not produce or create wealth. In tho one case, therefore, society was not bettered, and in the other case the world as a whole wag no better off than before, always supposing it not to have been any worse off. A Post-War Plague.

There is one class in the world today w'io would certainly dispute the assertion that war does not pay—war profiteers, who •Menf'at present a greater scourge in vanquished than in victor lands. They are verily one of the post.war. plagues which have descended from Europe; and just as even neutral lands are being troubled with the epidemics following on the war, sci they are being troubled with profiteers, although in both cares to a leas extent than belligerent countries, Nowhere, perhaps, can these carrion crows be better observed than in Vienna, Buda Petth and throughout Germany. All the large hotels in the Austrian and Hungarian capitals are overfilled with war profiteers, whoso business is seldom, if ever, avowable. They are, of course, of all nationalities, and it would be hard to say whether any particular nationality predominates. One generalisation may be made, however; war profiteers' usually come from a country whose money is worth a great deal now to another country whose exchange stands very much below par. Thus a' Bwise who can buy 100 Austrian kronen for 2 francs, ana for a time for 1.50 francs (instead of for .103 francs) arrives in Vienna with, let us say, 60,000 Swiss francs. Allowing 2 franca for 100 kronen, he has two. and a-half miljon kronen. Or an American arrives with 50,000 dollars, and receives therefore 15 million kronen. With these

sums they buy up whatever kind of valuables they may fancy—gold, platinum, precious stones, jewellery, paintings, silver, furniture, carpets, furs, old lace, motor-cars, or even bouses and landed property. t M Buying k Ohesp , Land. /' ■ >'ff ;. Recently I heard of a Swiss who went to Germany and bought an estate there for half a million marks, which, in Swiss money, was only 25,000 francs. All kinds of factories are also being bought up, but in Germany more than in Austria or Hungary, and whole rows of houses in Buda resth, Munich Berlin, and Vienna are passing into the hands of foreign owners. The Government* seem powerless

to prevent their countries being thus drained not merely of valuables and luxury articles, but also of necessaries such as furniture and bedding; and, what is worst of all, the sellers of these valuables and of landed and other property generally often leave the price paid them in some foreign bank, where it escapes taxation. That is to say, supposing an Austrian receives 50,000 dollars for his property, this sum will be credited to him in some American bank, and he will merely receive the interest upon it. Stamps are also much sought after by certain profiteers, and there is hardly a stamp collector in Austria. Hungary or Germany whose collection has not been rifled. The other day an American departed from Buda Pesth taking with him incredible quantities of stamps. War-made Fortunes. These profiteering foreigners find assistants in a certain set of Austrians and Hungarians, who have also become mysteriously rich since tho war, and some of whom; could they but be induced to unfold their own stories, would afford subjects for the most screaming of farces. The only trouble about these farces would he that on tho stage they would be criticised as "too facical." Thus there was in Buda Pesth in 1914 a humble clerk earning 300 kronen a month. By acquiring the gentle art of concealing flour and then selling it surreptitiously at a price far above that of the open market, ho has contrived to amass a fortune, which enables him to live in the best part of Buda Pesth, and to keep two men servants, two cooks, and four maids. An old umbrella-mender who used to live in one of the dirtiest slums in the Hungarian capital, in two rooms, parts of which he let to lodgers, can now afford to order cakes from the " court "confectioner " to |

the value of more than 26,000 kronen in one month, and meat to the value of morn than 43,000 kronen in the same month. A story is told in Buda Pesth of a former Minister, Dr. Alexander Wekcrle, who, not wishing to run up debts, allowed himself only two pair of shoes last vear, whereas his servant, who had piled up wealth owing to illicit transactions in fat, went to the name bootmaker and bought himself five parrs of shoes and two pairs of boats. Again, a pork butcher's assistant, with an excellent and extensive firsthand acquaintance with, law courts and prisons, has contrived to get so rich that he has now entered his own horses for the sprint; races in Ruda Pesth. On the other hand, the Hungarian magnates whose landed property is perhaps in territory now lost to Hungarv. have been reduced to selling their Turkish swords with bejewelled handles and the pearl clasps of their princely garments—pearl clasps dating bark to the time of the Medici. And in Buda Pesth are war profiteers paving 35.000 kronen and more for a hat to adorn the head of some actress, and some other fancy sum for a palace for a | dancing girl to live in. while thousands of voting children are without milk to drink and thousands of mothers without bread to eat.

Various Church organisations in America j are conducting a strenuous campaign to j "bring the country bark to Christianity," and the latest plan of the Northern Baptist • ( hurch is the operation of "chapel railway roaches" equipped with living quarters for the minister and his family and with seating accommodation for ninety persons. Seven such cars, attached to express trains, ire already being employed. Even in the larg6 towns it is realised that, something unique must be offered in order to attract people to church and compete with the rinema Mouses, which are crowded to cap acity every Sunday. As proof of the popu- | Inrity of the churches on wheels idea, it | is claimed that 19,000 men and women i already have professed conversion while en route and about a thousand have been baptised in the seven sow in service'. !