COUNTING THE KAISER'S WAR CHEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 17, 13 February 1909, Page 3

COUNTING THE KAISER'S WAR CHEST.

A curious task, typical of the petty thoroughness incidental to German army methods, has just been completed at Spanilau. near Berlin. This is the annual counting over, coin by coin, of the "Kriegschatz." or emergency war chest fund of £0,000,000, which ever since the war of 18T0-71 has been hoarded in a room in the Julius Tower of that supposedly impregnable fortress.

The "sum forms part of the £200.000,000 indemnity extracted from France as the price of peace. Towards the close of each year it is carefully counted by a selected stall' of non-commissioned ollieers. Their task occupies them a full week, starting on the Monday morning and finishing on the following Saturday night. During this period they arc praeticallv close prisoners, for they have to cut, sleep, and take what exercise they can within the steel-cased walls of the treasure-vanit.

At each counting the money is found to lose through wear and tear some four ounces in weight, equivalent to about CM. This is carefully made up before the vault is closed for another year, in order that the sum total may always remain p'-eciselv the same. Of course, the wastefulness involved In keeping this huge sum lying idle is obvious. If it had been allowed to grow ill compound interest, for instance, from the commencement, it would by now have more than trebled itself. But up to the present none of the many proposals made by different parties in the Reichstag to invest it or to convert it to immediate use have succeeded.

Once, however, it came within an ace of being carried off by thieves. The prime mover in the audacious coup, which was of a semi-political character, was a man named Eeinsdorf. and more than fifty others were implicated.

The plot was discovered in the nick of time, hut Reinsdorf escaped, only, however, to be hanged later on for attempting to blow up with dvnamite the national memorial at Tiudesheim on the occasion of its unveiling by the Emperor.