The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-25
REAL TRUTH ABOUT
 GERMANY TOLD BY
 AMERICAN BANKER
No Possibility of Starving Her Into Submission. Trade Conditions
 Normal

l London. April -(Correspondence
 ican banker who has just returned ! from Berlin talked with a party oi | English newspaper men on his arrival l in London He gave them rather a different idea of the state of affairs 1 in Berlin than that conveyed by most
 of the English newspaper comment He said:
 | You English should not be deceiv ed by newspaper statements reaching you from various continental points to the 1 effect that Germany is on the brink oi starvation l have just closed my house 1 in the fashionable residential part oi l Berlin. My household budget was not
 more than 25 per cent higher on March 1 10 than 1t was a year ago. Various I staple articles of food cost more--as | they do in London--but hardly one is
 beyond the reach of the ordinary mid | dle class householder, or even of the 1 humber classes. Everybody must have a bread ticket and there Is no snort
 age of bread. My family of four and ] two servants never used the whole oi our tickets for the week. The potato | flour bread is only slightly less palat- able than the old-time wheaton loaf At present no German is capable oi even dreaming of the possibility of de- l feat
 l T find also vast amount of fool l ish misapprehension in England about industrial conditions in Germany. Trade does not seem to me to have been ma l terially disiocated. The shops appear l to have their regular flow of custom.
 CTS. The coffee houses, the restaur- | ants, the theatres, the concert halls l the picture palaces and other estab- | lishments dependent on public patron 1 age seem to be doing as well as eigh' | months ago. The coffee houses which have cabarets are always crammed l ''Is it generally understood here that Germany is at the moment short o1
 artisan labor? Unemployment Is almost
 .nonexistent. Wages are high. A skilled l man who used to get only $1 or $12l | a day can now earn $2.50 or S3. Ev- l erything connected~with the output o1
 munitions is working al utmost capac- 1 ity day and night, Sundays and holi. 1 days without cessation. New factories | have sprung up like mushrooms to pro. Guce goods heretofore imported into | Germany.
 "A German friend of mine who use, | to make furniture and found his ousi.
 ness temporarily shelved by the war
 Is now making shrapnel. employing
 women and girls in place of the mel l WiO nave 6Onc tO tne lTOnl.
 l Tt is also wrong to conclude, as | some etimes read in the English news l papers, that Germany is so near the | dregs of her resources that boys of 1T | are being dragooned into the army 1 Nothing of the sort. A German lad oi 1 my acquaintance, a fine athletic fel- | low of IS, has not been summoned. al l! though he is ready to volunteer. They 1 do not need him.
 l "In short, to the casual observer | there is no outward sign that Germany l Is on the verge of famine in either 1 men, provisions munitions or money | The plentifulness of money Is almost 1 the only bluff that Germany Is put ting up. The money so 'plentifully 1 in circulation is paper currency ol | value as low as 25 cents, flowing iron | the imperial treasury like water.
 "The Germans. in my Judgment | thanks to far-sighted precautionary measures and natural frugality, car never be starved into surrender. They | can be inconvenienced-they are now
 but that is a different thing"