The Alaska daily empire., 1915-10-09
wuL EUROPE LOSE ms MIDDLE cLAssEsm


 The other day a banker railroad president. manu facurer and newspaper man fell into conversation on the probable state of Europe when the ends Their opinions varied about which side would win whether t would end in Q draw or sheer exhaustion
 They, agreed that however st might end the people of the nations on one side or the other and maybe the people of che nations both sides. would find them selves under burden of taxation heretofore never ser ousiy imagined and almost unimaginable-
 As Illustrative of what he believed would happen one man told Of conservation some years before the war with the head of London bank with branches in several European capitals and In the Levant He asked the banker in what country he thought man could most safely invest his money.
 The bondholder answered that he had been studying that question for two three years, because of British legislative tendencies and had concluded that the Unit ed States and Canada were "the best bets. He also averred that a very quiet but large migration of Brit ish wealth was taking place.
 Now if such was the effect of the "sociar legislation of England some years ago. what is going to be the effect in an the European countries engaged Of future taxation to pay for the war-of taxation which 1t is hard to see stopping short of taking at least half Of every income above the bare subsistence level and not only from this generation but also from tho next and the next2
 Whether A raton from tbe warning countries has been matter of speculation Since the destructions of the war will have to be repaired it is hard to any great emigration of the masses of toers unless 1t be from countries which escape physical devastation and which will be flooded with returned soldiers whom the industrial formation cannot readily abso-b They may find it necessary to seek newer lands.
 But how about the people in all these countries who arc neither very rich nor near poveryhOw about the Briton with e5OoO or the German with 100000 marks, or the Frenchman with 100000 francsi
 What are they going to do? Arc they going to stay in their native lands when the grip of martial law is relaxed and pay taxes that win take half their incomes and half their chidrens and their grandchndren's in comesg During the patriotism and other influences kept them from leaving But when the war is over will they feel these pressures2
 Are we not likely to see when the European war ends a sort of immigration into this and other com paravey loaxed countries that has never been known beIore2 Not Q migration of those who haye little or nothing save strong hands and willingness to work. but a migration of moneyl
 It Is not likely to be a migration of those who control great wealth in fluid form They will find plenty of occupation and profit in promoting and financing material reconstruction. But t seems likely that the conservative class of merely welodo people the mid de classes" of the warning countries will find the situation so ntolerabe to move them to seek new homes.
 And since the history of modern Europe is largely the history of the growth and rise to power of "the middle class" 1t not likely that it's possible exodus from Europe will have effects quite different from those currently assumed on the political and social recon struction which many expecti
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