GERMANY TO=DAY.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1395, 22 May 1923, Page 2

GERMANY TO=DAY.

FLEECING THE FOREIGNER. HOW TiHIE "AUSLANDER" IS TAXED. BY R. L. C. MUNICH, March I.—lt is an intensely interesting experience to revisit 'Germany after a lapse of six months, if only to test the durability of first impressions. Without qualification it must he said that those impressions are sustained. The same sleek, well fed men and women, the same feverish spending, the same evidence on all sides that, if Germany has no money for reparations she has ample for the deevlopment of her cities and her rural -lands. I have just come from Stuttgart. There the first object which meets the traveller's eye is a. palatial new railway station, completed in 1920; and the new buildings proceeding in the city, and the lavish scale on which if is all designed are truly amazing when one reminds oneself that this is in "bankrupt" Germany. At Lindau. that delightful little town on the shores of Lake Constance, an extensive scheme of foreshore reclamation is in progress. Cologne, in the heart of the British occupied area, is spending a small fortune on new swimming baths under the very nose of its creditors. These are but a few instances of a condition of things that is general. "Feeding Hie I'oor." The truth is of course (hat apart from the tremendous economic complexities of the question there is no will to pay reparations in Germany; and as i' to add insult to ihis injury a huge section of the German public, led by those- in authority, is dipping in hands deep into the pockets of visitors, particularly British sub jects. Xo wonder that, tourist traffic is rapidly passing intt■ the limbo of forgotten things. While Entente statesmen vainly pur-ue phantom German milliards, the much more practical German gathers real and tangible Entente millions. Discriminc'.'Pg taxation of all ki,.d:- is levelled against the hated ' Auslander" in

the most impudent inf•ingemeni of tin, 1 Treaty of Versailles. Before leav-

ing London I paid the Cerman Consulate 00,000 marks for a visa. On arrival here I was informed that i must report, to the Bavarian police headquarters. There the authorities noekf-ted 00,000 marks more for an

ungracious consent to my remaining in Bavaria for less than a week. This kind of tiling is highly contagious, as cue learns before one has been in the country for 24 hours. On a ticket for the opera in Munich the "Auslander" pays a lax of 300 per cent, and to ensure that nobobdy escapes one has to produce a passport or certificate of nationality at the door. To visit the Royal palace or one of the great picture galleries a German or an Austrian (in which favour a single exception is made) pays 300 marks; an "Auslander" pays 0,000 to 10,000. It is the same wherever one goes. Apparently the Bavarian Government feels that some explanation is necessary, for there is a notice at police- headquarters intimating that the proceeds of this taxation "are chiefly devoted to feeding the poor." The plea is that an "impoverished" State like Germany must protect herself against foreign profiteers like Britons with their bulging (?) pockets. A ? more legitimate means of meeting the position, if such it be, would be a police request to Great Britain to restrict visas for visitors to Germanv.

A New National Sport.

As mutters stand the Government sets the example of regarding the Briton as legitimate prey, and needless 1.0 say. nobody is slow to follow suit. One is fleeced by one's hotelkeeper, who, having to collect an outrageous dwellings tax, ranging up to 80 per cent of the amount of his bill, feels that lie would be failing in his duty to the Fatherland did he fail to seize a share of the plunder; one is fleeced by shopkeepers, whose quotations are only limited by their estimate of the gullability of the customer. And all the time there is the galling knowledge that one is helping to reduce the burden of taxation which State and municipal authorities are either unwilling or unable to collect. Despite all the talk of poverty, hundreds of thousands of Ger-' mans, having placed huge investments in foreign currencies, are more prosperous to-day than they have ever been before, yet. the nation is content to let the hungry be fed by the barely tolerated foreigner. Surely if it passes the mind of man to devise a method whereby Germany can be made to pay for the ruin she wrought during the war, it ought not to be impossible to prevent such a defaulting debtor from picking her creditors' pockets. The practices T have described were practically unknown six months ago. To-day they are a national pastime Bad Temper in Munich. Bavaria the home ,of Germany's post-war grouch, as they call her in America, is in a very ugly temper. At heart she is still intensely monarchial

and militaristic; and the French occupation of the Ruhr has provided an outlet for a display of unbridled rancour. Eighty per cent of the shops in Munich display conspicuous notices reading. "No admission to French and Belgians." Practically every hotel imposes the same man. A cartoon from Le Journal' depicting France, in the person of a mighty Amazon, strangling a weakling designed to represent the German working man, accompanies most of these warnings. Huge posters headed, "The Fatherland in Misery," call niton the people to lend their aid in the campaign of passive resistance, so called Once more there is talk of Der Tag. "We. are helpless now." said one Municher to me. "but the day will come." In the schools there is active anti-French propaganda. Maps hang upon the walls to illustrate the despoiling of Germany, and boys and girls, in the most impressionable period of life, are taught that all Germany's troubles are the direct outcome of the Treaty of Versailles. Those boys and girls are the German masses of tomorrow.- Can one contemplate such i a condition of things with high hope for the future peace of Europe? The Flight from Hie .Mark. It is a. bewildering country, this. One has to train one's brain to reckon every thing in terms of thousands and lens of thousands. One cannot buy a box of matches without starting at several thousands of marks. For extensive shopping it is necessary lo carry a brief bag to contain the requisite paper money. Six months ago i was buying marks at 8.500 to the£l. To-day I buy at 100,000 and more. Afalr all, the prophecy that the collapse of the mark would produce a social revolution has not proved fallacious. For is not that which has happened in the nature of a revolution? The mark has lost the j chief characteristics of money, both I a.'s a means of preserving and,, of mea- j suring value. In ordinary circuni- ' stances, only the pound, the-'dollar, i the gulden or the Swiss franc is sought for the payment of imports or foreign debts. In so far as the I

■ instinct for thrift has not been eni lively extinguished, it seems to find f satisfaction in the unpatriotic and • uneconomical investment of pur- • chasing foreign currency only. "I'd i beat Germany to her knees in three days without, firing a shot," said a : business man, whose work lakes him : frequently to the Continent, as we travelled together to Munich the other day. "I'd resume the war simply for the purpose of seizing the vast German investments outside Germany." An impracticable theory doubtless, but it expounds the great theory that Germany has amassed vast wealth beyond the reach of the Reparations Commission, by investment in foreign currencies. Chiefly, however, the desire to get rid of (he falling mark takes the more demoralising form of ruthless extravagance. "Get rid of the mark anyhow, as soon as you can." That seems to be the guiding principle of the masses. A country famous for its thrift for generations, has become the chief spendthrift of Europe. Listless Working .Men, That, is a pha.se of the moral aspect of the "flight from the mark" that strikes the most superficial observer before he has been in the country for more than a few days. In this way Germany is paying dearly for the success of the manipulation of the mark. Another phase one learns of from employers of labour. Superficially, they say. Germany is hard working and prosperous; the real facts are that she is no more' hard working than she is saving. Manufacturers declare that the German workman is not worth half what he was before the war. Reduced hours of labour, as we have experienced in the Dominion, so far from inducing increased hourly output, have tended lo decrease it. Labour generally is listless. If manufacturing succeeds, it is because German prices, by reason of the continuous fall of the mark, have kept far below world prices, and even with miserably inefficient labour, have allowed a wide margin of profit—profit which, as far as possible, is invested outside Germany. What is needed lo put Germany on her feet is more work and less consumption. Discussions of this character inevitably lead to the vexed problem of reparations. It is very difficult to induce Germans to discuss the question, soberly. As a matter of interest, without in any way endorsing the views expressed. I quote one business man's viewpoint. lie is not a politician, and he has had extensive business relations with the Dominion before the war so his observations may at least be regarded as a matter of interest. "No debtor," he said, "will work hard and save and strain every nerye to pay his debts, as every honest debtor should, if he knows that the harder he works the greater vvil'i be his indebtedness, and the further he will drift from economic freedom. Rightly or wrongly that is the mental attitude of the German people. What is wanted is a solution of the problem designed to revolutionise that at- ! titiule. When Wie people know that

their total indebtedness is lixed, once and for all, and that the amount is not so large that ultimate payment is hopeless they will get to work with a. will and I hey will save as they did before; tin; war, and they will pay their bill."