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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16225, 4 July 1918, Page 6

Tho fears of the German Government as to the financial situation of the country after the war are indirectly but quite plainly expressed in a remarkable provision in this year's Budget. This Budget makes all German subjects, including those naturalised in foreign countries since the outbreak of the war, liable to taxation in Germany for five years after the war ends. Before a taxpayer is allowed to leave Germany, he will have to supply a full inventory of all his property, of every kind, and give security equal to 20 per cent, of his capital. Later on there is to bo a strict regulation of the export of capital. It is plain that the Government expects that when the war is over Germans with money will be anxious to leave the Fatherland for almost anywhere. , This will fill with wonder and distress those Germans—if there be any such—who have believed the assurances of the Kaiser and his friends that after the war Germany will be rich and glorious, and the only place in which life will be worth living.

One of the cable messages printed yesterday recorded the recrudescence, apparently in a very sharp form, of the controversy between the Freetraders and Protectionists in Great Britain, the fobus of the quarrel being Mr W. M. Hughes's remarks upon fiscal policy after the war. We have not the details of the speeches of Mr Hughes on this subject, but we can easily understand that a politician so little given to considering his words and so anxious to stand well with the Northcliffe Press, would say much from which commonsense would dissent. The cable message referred to spoke of "the Imperialist journals" as eulogising Mr Hughes, whilo "the other section of tbp Press" attacks him. This choice of terms to describe the division of opinion may have been made merely for the sake of brevity, but it is likely to mislead colonial people.

Nothing could be " further from the facts, or more likely to injure the Imperial cause, than to insist that the advocates of Protection in Britain aro the only Imperialists. Imperialism is something more than a fiscal doctrine, and a man may be invincibly attached to the Freetrade theory and be an Imperialist of the very best kind. Nobody is likely, we should say, to maintain that such men as Mr Lloyd George, Mr Asquith, and Viscount Grey, to name but three, are anti-Imperialists, and enemies of the Imperial idea. Yet they are confirmed Freetraders, although, in common with many other friends of Freetrade, they recognise that, for a time at least, special steps must be token, through the tariff or otherwise, to render the key industries in Britain secure, and to prevent the recrudescence of conditions favourable to Germany as against Britain. As for the newspapers, the most powerful of all the Freetrade organs before the war was the "Spectator," although it also has agreed that at least a temporary modification of the Freetrade policy is necessary in the interests of national security. To suggest that the "Spectator" is anti-Imperialist is as absurd

as it would be to suggest that -"The Times" is pro-German. Nor can it be allowed that newspapers, of the standing of the "Westminster Gazette'' and the "Manchester Guardian'' are unfriendly to the Imperial idea.

When the "Manchester Guardian" or the "Westminster Gazette," say, opposes the adoption of unmitigated Protectionism as Britain's permanent policy, it is not moved by anti-Imperial feelings. On the-contrary, its motive is as Rood as any that are likely to inspire Mr Hughes or the "Daily Mail"—its opinion arises from its conviction that such a policy would be bad for Britain and the Empire as a whole. There are, indeed, Freetraders who dislike the Imperial idea, just as there are Protectionists who are moved rather by private and personal consideration than by anxiety for the Empire. But. the great majority on both sides are, one may assume, good Imperialists. We trust that it will never come to pass that a man's patriotism or Imperialism will be made subject to a fiscal test. It will not oome to pass if the Dominions discountenance the application of such a test, and this the Dominions can do while giving hearty support to the adoption of stringent measures against the re-appearance of the German menace.