The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-09-27


serve, not to cover the war cost but tc
pay the interest on loans? Long before the
war broke out it was affirmed that the
great powers were marching towards
bankruptcy. This was proposition which
Europes financial experts mostly ac-
cepted though they differed on one great
detail. The experts of each country
agreed that other countries were going
bankrupt, but for patriotic motives they
affirmed that their own countries were
flourishing. David yd-George said the
finance burden was crushing the pow
ers," but boosted of the sufficiency and
elasticity of British finances Ger
many's great expert, Prof. julius Wolf
of Berlin, published in the first war
month a book on German and English
Taxation Reserves" in which he shows
that England could not raise q penny
more In taxes, whereas Germany could
raise 5000. 900. The world-famous M.
Caillaux said that France alone has
the trump card of an unexhausted In
come tax In fact, there was rosy OPP
timism everywhere among experts when
they considered their own country s
finances, and blacklist pessmism when
they looked tearfully at the finances oil
their neighbors. But the few cold, calm
experts who view all countries impartial
ly commented that all Europes great
powers were equally badly off The war
must finish them.
Europes old trouble was the usual
bankruptcy trouble that she spent more
Ion ~, In he
states We're threatened with deficits, or
they based their budgets falsely on peace
and the good economic years 19O9-13, and
were upset badly In their calculations
first by the trade slump and then by the
war. The general public put down the
vast increased expenditure, before the
war, mainly to ornaments, to competi-
ton In army corps and dreadnaughts;
but this was not all the truth. In part
the expenditure increase was due to
greater activity of the states normal
functions; more extended home and diplo-
matte work, justice, education, and in
part to the greater interest payable to
debts increase. Also the expenditure in
crease was partly due to so-called pro
ductive" expenditure, that is, to the
state taking over functions of social bet
terment which 1t formerly neglected. So
cial reform is expensive England now
spends 500, 100000 annually on social re-
form, not a cent of which she spent when
the liberals came to power in 1906. Social
reform is responsible for the fact that
Germany's department of the interior
costs just a hundredfold more than it
Ia, ..r. 4.
vast expenditure which was draining
Europe even in peace time were arfAa-
ments and social legisla misrepresentation
for the present butchery of ones fellow
men and efforts to make them comfort
able and content.
Europe's troubles in raising the revenue.
for butchery and social reform We're in
part financial and economic and in part
political. Experts differed as to how
much each factor counted Prof. Adolpf
Wagner said it's all politics: We're it mo-
for the plaguey obstinacy and factionisn
of parties. money could easily be raised
Professor Brentano OF Munich said tn.
opposite; the real reason is that the ma
tons We're already SO ground by protec
Zionist taxes that they could pay no more
Statesmen, while piling on taxes, tool
this last view. In the pacifist speeches
with which they prepared for the war
the universal refrain was 1.-The nation.
We're grooming under the burden" Davi,
Iloyd-George, Asquith. Viviani. NJ
BRAND, Germanys former treasury see
rotary, Wermuth, and Bavaria premier