PAY-DAY ON THE RHINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18380, 21 April 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

PAY-DAY ON THE RHINE.

BRITISH SOLDIERS' SPORT. JUGGLING WITH THE MARK. If, when in Cologne, and. the day is Friday, you happen to meet a British soldier with tremendous bulges under his overcoat, don't imagine, writes Mr* Percy Brown in the Graphic, he is suffering from some fearful malformation of the hip. He has. probably just called at Barclays Bank and : changed there the pound sterling into German paper currency. Life among the troops in occupied territory might have settled down to a dreary humdrum routine if it had not been for the fluctuation of the mark. Buying and selling marks is now the " king of indoor sports" on the Rhine. There is no sign of gambling fever/ and the game is still a game, and not a vice. A friendly corporal explained to me how it was done. In the early days, when the pound stood at a hundred marks, a soldier could go to the Army Post Office with his pay and buy a. postal _ order for sixty marks, thus, right away making fortymarks profit out of this simple operation. This was controlled and in some way curtailed*. But recently, for example ,a man who had received 205,000 marks from the Army Pay Department for his pound could go to Barclays and buy a pound for. about 170,000, and so on ad lib. This

is accounted for by the fact that the army gets a better rate than anyone else. This is quite legal. Whatever the soldier manages to gam by buying and selling marks it is almost certain that he will buy something ,', with his winnings. The wily German shopkeeper keeps his prices low, lagging well behind the upward curve of the mark, because he knows that he can tempt his customers to buy only if his prices are well below those in England. _ In Cologne one can see parties of men spending hours of * time and good money in buying quantities of articles simply because these are cheap. The useless articles are priced so that these will first teirjpt the amateur shopper. On the other hand, the wives of the officers and men are the German shopkeepers' " dread, for the woman's first question is, " But, dear, is' it any use to us?" The man will stupidly answer, " But look how cheap it. is..';',