GERMANY’S MIDDLE CLASS.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 September 1924, Page 4

GERMANY’S MIDDLE CLASS.

Millie a lew thousand wealthy families in Germany are daily adding Lo their wealth, the masses of the people., and especially the great middle class, including a lari:,, proportion of the country's intellectuals, are undergoing unknow n hardships in I his period of read justment after I lie Croat War. This at any rate i, the view of Mr Frank A. Hess, in the I’nivcrsity of Wisconsin. (iermany’s -intellectuals are cast ini' alien! in desperation fur supplementary income. A number of students were tided ever scleral weeks by taking the parts ol soldiers in a lilni production, ••|''rlderiek the (treat.” A professor of literature, who had hern an exchange professor of literature* in this country id < lie lime, asked me with tears in his eye-: ••('an you not eel me some I w ork, typewrit ini', translal ing, abso-J lut elv anything?” The principals of the two higher schools in a small town : n Northern Bavaria could not j afford to buy wood for the winter, so they went inio the forest with their wives, cut and hauled it themselves. One day I returned to my pension to li in I the lobby thronged. I asked the porter if it were a delegation of foreign visitors, for they all wore frock coats, though shabby ones. When the whole country is in a desperate struggle for existence the main emphasis is placed upon production, and all forms of intellectual and artistic culture are at a discount. One of! the pathetic incidents of Germany’s poverty is the marked decline of interest in literature and the things of the spirit. Art and music are among the professions hardest hit. Few people can , longer alfmd concerts, plays. and operas. j