BERLIN TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 July 1919, Page 10

BERLIN TO-DAY.

REMARKABLE VIEW OF THE SITUATION. A mos,t interesting statement of the condition of things in Berlin to-day was given by "Viator" in the London Times. Ho says:—

"The view of the average German is that it does not matter whe.ther peace is signed at Versailles or not. The majority of those in responsible positions, the bankers and big business men, are hopeful ,tlmt peace will not be signed, and that a further Allied occupation will result,. bringing with it the order and industry already prevailing in the occupied Rhineland, and almost nowhere else in Germany."

Having recounted ,the various aspects of life in Berlin to-day, which, he says, docs not greatly differ externally from life in 1913, "Viator" continues:— "At present it is still a maelstrom of plo.ts and counter-plots, but it is crystallising for the day when peace is accepted or refused—whichever happens does not seem to matter.

"There are to-day about 25,000 Russians in Berlin—agents of Lenin and Trotsky. With or without the connivance of the present German Government, but certainly with its knowledge, the heads of ,this army of troublemakers conduct a daily courier service through the German lines from Berlin to Moscow. As a result, printing presses were first established in Munich, but are now running in Berlin, engaged in carrying out the tables and most brilliant idea that the brainof Lenin has yet conceive—namely the destruction of currency. I mean that Germany is now flooded with millions of counterfeit mark notes that are as excellent in quality as .those turned out by. the Government. There is so much of this money that the banks refuse it—so it is current everywhere, and good. The Deutsche Bank no longer knows whether it is solvent"

"Via,tor" continues! "But this ig not all or the worst of this phase of the situation. To-day they are printing £5 notes in Berlin—thefse Lenin presses; also 100 franc notes of the Banque de Prance. Quite good imitations, although not ao good as the German noteß because of the greater difficulty in matching the paper, mat will be done with them? I can only surmise by showing the use to which the bad money is put in Berlin. The present Government paid 12 marks per day to every unemployed workman. It now pays 15 marks per day, despite the faot thfit its capital is exhausted. The new army, organised by Gus.tav Noske, the Minister /or Defence, gets five marks per man per day, and the best food that the Entente has sent in.

This outlay, in addition to the upkeep of the Hindenburg army on the Polish frontier and. the von der Goltz troops in Courland, about 250,000 in all/makes the pay sheet of the War Office about ,the same as in the days when the real German Army was fighting the Allies. Noske would like .to cut his rate of pay to three marks per day, but dares not do it. It is only the strength of his personality that holds .things together at five marks—and the chances here are Btrongly against his ability to do it long. Why? Because any unemployed German •—or any soldier—can get fifty marks a day in bad money. The posts are filled with Soviet literature. The Government retaliates by placing posters all about showing Bolshevik horrors. In the poorer districts the Lenin agents are almost openly at work. In the pafes .they treat all comers with wine or beer. They consider the economic situation of the cases in hand, and the most likely go away fifty marks in pocket. "Some of even the great German industrials, despairing of the present ramshackle Government's power to survive the shock of Versailles, have made open overtures to Moscow. Such men as Hugo Stinnes, the coal magnate, also Dr. Walter Rathenau, of tho General Electric Company, have already offered .their establishments'to the Communists, on the promise of personal immunity for themselves and families. These men argue that after a few months of Communism they will be called back to take charge as the only men capable of managing affairs, and that they will .come back on their own terms. Thus they are ready to vaccinate Bolshevism with compromise so far as Germany is concerned, in the J)ope that the unvaccinated product will pass .the armies that guard the Rhine—where the £5 and lOOfr. notes are to be circulated among the British and French soldiers.

"So the best opinion that I have been able to sound is that the Government cannot survive, whether it signs peace or I not. Optimists give it about six weeks after the Versailles Conference, whatever .the result may be. Then probably j a Noske dictatorship for the same length of time, and after that the rule of the I proletariat, unless the Allies take charge of Berlin first. A Noske dictatorship [ might have a chance were it not for the state of the people and their knowledge that he lias entirely shifted from his former position of Socialist member of the Heichstag to the most reactionary spirit of the present Government Germany was held together before by the prestige, power, and tyranny of Prussia. Prussia, has no prestige in all Germany to-day. I do not desire to damp the enthusiasm of the peacemakers and those who' are about to build bonfires throughout Great Bri.tain, but I warn my friends of the Entente that the mere signing of a scrap of paper at Versailles, or the not signing of it, will have no good effect in Germany unless Germany supplied with a stabiliser, preferably in the shape of the present mild Allied occupation."