SPECTRE OF RUIN.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 39, 22 May 1917, Page 8

SPECTRE OF RUIN.

GERMANY TO BE SAVED ONLY

AN INDEMNITY,

The “Dresdencr Nachrichten, ” estimating Germany’s war expenditure already at 120 milliard marks (6,000,000,000), draws a sombre picture of the empire if no war indemnity is received from her enemies (reported a “Daily News’’ correspondent in March). “The burden,’’ it says, “would become so heavy that part of the cost of education would have to be saved. All salaries would have to be diminished, social reforms limited, and rents and prices of food raised. The great masses of the middle slasses would become poor. The result would be an economic throttling of homo industries, making itself felt from Krupp’s to the humblest labourer. There is no more bloodly sarcasm than that of the programme of Herr Scheidemann, who wished to make an end of the war in such a way that every State should pay its own costs. He who gives such advice to the German Fatherland is leading it toward suicide. Every day the war continues the question of laying upon the enemy a great part of the war costs becomes a more imperative demand for the existence of the empire. ’ ’ Discussing the proposed now Gorman war taxes, the “Lokalanzeiger’’ mentions the possibility that the war profits tax may bo made retrospective in character in addition to the proposed increase of 20 per cent, in the existing tax. An Imperial tax on railway traffic has also been considered.

With regard to the reported coal tax, the proposal is that every ton shall pay a certain amount, probably li to 2 marks, to the State before the coal is brought into the market. In ordinary times Germany produces about 500,000,000 tons of coal yearly, so that a tax of two marks would produce one milliard marks (£50,000,000).

The paper says the coal-owners would accept the new tax willingly, “as they hope the danger of the nationalisation of the coal industry would be prevented by it.”