The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1922. TRAGEDY OF THE MARK.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 October 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1922. TRAGEDY OF THE MARK.

According to the latest cabled message as to the value of the German mark, it now takes 20,100 marks to be the equivalent of a pound sterling. Startling as are these figures, it is doubtful whether their significance in regard to the effect of this extraordinary slump on the German people is in any way realised. The situation was quaintly emphasised recently by Dr. Schultz, who said :

“Last y/ar we ate our grand piano; this year we are eating our Turkish earpets; next year we shall have to eat our house,” thereby vividly illustrating the tragedy of the mark. It would seem that at last the German people are being made to feel the full brunt of their country’s expiation, .and some of them are paying the bitter and terrible price of seeing their former competence rapidly melt away, and not very far ahead positive starvation is awaiting them if nothing happens to cheek the fall of the mark. In Dr. Schultz’s case, before the war the money he, had invested brought in a revenue of about 24,000 marks a year, which, at the old parity, was about £l2OO, enabling him and his child to live in comfort, with two or three good servants, a car, and holiday expenses, but to-day that income would only about suffice to buy a hat, and, if the decline continues, it will barely suffice to pay for an old pair of boots. In another case some sympathising friend sent by post to a woman a parcel containing a threadbare second-hand overcoat, and the woman was called upon by the Customs officials to . .pay eighteen thousands marks for duty. Of course, the casual foreigner who goes to Germany sees nothing of this hideous tragedy, though its victims number hundreds of thousands, if not millions. He sees first-class hotels, places of amusement, etc., crowded by well-dress-ed people, the shops crammed with articles of luxury, and notices new manufacturing and business premises in course of erection. All the normal signs of prosperity meet him at every turn, but it is a peculiar sort of prosperity, by reason of the fact that the proceeds of this prosperity lose their value almost as rapidly as they are acquired, and that is one reason why they’cannot be employed for the' settlement of Germany’s

debts. At the same time it is evident that during the recent business boom in Germany the manufacturers and merchants made fabulous profits, which have been largely concealed in the extension of works and modernisation of plant. Naturally prices soared beyond all conception, and rising prices always press heavily on the middle classes, because their incomes do not admit of such rapid readjustment as those of the workers. That phase of the tragedy the people of New Zealand will be able to fully comprehend as they have had to undergo a similar painful experience. Apparently a new middle class is growing up in Germany, and it is feeding on the blood of the old one. The marks which swell the banking account of the peasant, the piano which gives silent, dignity to his cottage, the diamonds which adorn his wife, and the fur collars which his daughters, like Svengali, wear winter and summer, come from the pockets, the drawing-room, the jeweleases and the wardrobes of impoverished professional men and their families, who formerly lived in affluence, but have now been compelled to part with all their superfluities of existence in order to provide the barest necessities. The general cost of living has increased between fifty and a hun-dred-fold. While the new rich, who are not more attractive in Germany than elsewhere, multiply apace, squander money recklessly on every kind of pleasure, and in many eases have laid up fortunes abroad, out of the reach of the tax collectors and Reparations Commissions, the best elements in the nation have to fight a desperate battle against sheer extinction. These are the people .who realise

that war does not pay, and if they survive the ordeal, should be a potent factor in the cause of peace.