POVERTY AND GAIETY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 951, 19 April 1930, Page 26

POVERTY AND GAIETY

GERMANY’S CARNIVAL MASK HIDES SUFFERING AN APPEAL TO THE RICH The gay mask of Germany’s carnival season this year hides such widespread poverty that good taste, says a resolution by the Social-Democratic association of Cologne police, calls for a toning down of gaiety by the fortunate few. In appealing to the rich not lo flaunt their prosperity in the face of the unemployed, the association calls attention to the fact that by the middle of February the number of men and women in Germany receiving unemployment insurance benefits had climbed to 2,500.000, only one-tenth of whom were classified as receiving "temporary” relief. “We police naturally come into daily and intimate contact with those who suffer most,” said the resolution, as it urged abandonment of the annual balls and devotion of the money to charity. The association also suggests that it would make the unemployed feel better if Government pensions were limited to 12,000 marks (about £600) yearly. Apparently the police have in mind reports that Gustav Boes, suspended Mayor of Berlin, is to be retired on a pension of 28,000 marks.