GERMANY IN EXTREMIS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6487, 6 April 1908, Page 4

GERMANY IN EXTREMIS

If it is a surprise to find the Germans in the money market it is not a disagreeable surprise, for the difficulties of a rival are never -wholly disagreeable. This rival has been specially demonstrative in the race against us for the command of the seas, and of late has induced many good, worthy British souls to fall into a kind of panic. To them it will certainly be an agreeable thing that the muchfeared potential enemy cannot afford to pursue the uneven tenor of his way. This appeal to the money market ought not, however, to surprise anyone, for the deficits of the German exchequer are not new, and it is some time since the German Nary Estimates looked quite true. Help must come from somewhere, and where more naturally than from the centre of all things financial P Britain has always financed the Continent. During the Napoleonic wars it was British money that fed, and paid, and armed the troops of the nations which ultimately dethroned' their conqueror. Since then all Continental enterprises have had a share of life-giving British gold. Now the greatest living exponent of militarism comes, hat in hand, for help to carry on that policy at the height of its extravagance. It will be S surprise indeed if the money is forthcoming. But perhaps nothing ever surprises in the world of high finance. The financial straits that are driving the German and Prussian Governments forth to seek the gold of the foreigner may be measured by the terms offered. Four per cent, at 99J is -a sufficient proclamation of danger ti warn prudent men off the security. It is not as if a great war had ended, leaving a bleeding nation unable to stir without help. This application is the result of a long-continued policy of extravagance which has come to be regarded as indispensable. The German application means, in fact, the confession that the great nations of the world have run the war idea to the point where they are compelled to live beyond their means, straining their credit far beyond the limits of the possible. It may be too soon to hope that the bubble of militarism, the most insane of all the bubbles in the history of national folly, is getting near the bursting point. But this -loan is certainly a sign pointing in that direction. The German Empire wants money to keep afloat with, while the Prussian kingdom is anxious for some more millions to spend in the purchase of Polish estates on which to settle Gorman peasants. The policy has been entirely destroyed by the astuto patriotism of the Poles, who have raised the price of land by an opposition purchase policy on the Polish interest, and provided for it a base in a successful farming to which the German settlers are wholly strangers. The Prussian policy seems just as radically hopeless as the Imperial. Neither ought to get one penny of aid anywhere. Qcmkl we but send’ to Germany a few of our denouncers of the system of unjustifiable borrowing which does not exist here, we should provide those at ‘present misguided orators with a legitimate subject for their eloquence, and at the same time obtain repose for the people of the Dominion who are sick of hearing the best securities in the world wantonly depressed to the lowest point of imaginary distress. 1