New Britain herald., 1916-02-18
GERMANY FACES NEW
 TAXES AFTER WAR
Generally Believed Salaries and
 Wages Mill Not Advance

haps an entire new taxation system.
 are in prospect for Germany after
 the war. What is to be their effect
 on the great mass of the working
 population? Will salaries and wages
 have to go up to enable the workers to pay them? Will retrenchment in
 personal expenditures, alone, be suf-
 hcient to cover them? How, prob
 ably, will salaries after the war com
 pare with those paid before the con-
 hict started? Will the before-the-war
 Industries that are all but dead now revive immediately so as to give em- ployment and money to men, now soldiers, who must pay the taxes These are questions put by an As sociated Press correspondent to some ,, of the leading industrial men and economists of Germany in an effort s to get at least a hypothetical solution of ~the problem that is being dis cussed in almost every newspaper ill the empire under the heading, "New Taxes"
 Will Not Advance
 The majority of men to whom the foregoing questions were put seemed Ito be unanimous in the opinion that 4salaries and wages after the war probably will not advance beyond their present height-which is far beyond what there were before the war in the case of wages-because they are high enough to care for ail proposed increases in taxation This majority is so confident in Germany's thorough economic soundness and in 'her economic future that they main- tam, ln effect, no increase is going to be necessary. A combination of frugality, which the average Ger man is easily capable of, and of a business boom of unprecedented pro- portions, these men believe is going te do away with the necessity of l Imposing the burden of higher wages | on employers
 The minority is divided between 1 those who do believe that increased l emoluments for workers are going to l be "a necessity, with a consequent, reduction for a time of capital avail able for investment. and those who are not sure, but who think that it may easily be that employers will | feel that it is the just if not the necessary thing for them to Iengthcn l their payrolls.
 Workmen Getting Wages.
 The correspondent found, however. an almost universal tendency to touch l but very lightly on that saIaried class l of workers, petty officials, clerks, and 1 so on. who benefit least from their l country's economic we1l-being but who must help carry the burden of i extra taxation if that becomes neces- sary. In virtually every instance the | to the questions in the open- ! ing paragraph applied to workmcn | getting wages rather than to workers z receiving salaries
 Sigmund Bergman, principal own CT and director general of the Berg mann Electrical Works, probably the | second concern of its kind in Ger | many, may be said to be a fair ex- ample of the majority, except that he makes certain reservations He be- ieves existing wages are high enough to cover whatever taxation may come unless the countries now at war i with Germany consistently and for a 1 long period of time refuse to renew commercial relations with her. l1
 For approximately a year and a ] half after the war; he says, "I ex- | pect to see a tremendous boom in | electrical and mechanical industries | In general. We shall need that much time merely to re-supply our own countries with the things that have been used up during the war We shall not need an order from outside to keep everything going full blast.
 Depends on Foreign Countries.
 ''The continued well-b being of the German workman after that depends, In my opinion, entirely upon the foreign countries. If England, France. Italy and Russia continue to hate us If they are willing to try to injure us by not buying our goods and by 'Is- ing others no matter how expensive, then there is no question but that wages will go down.
 s'Such a course is in the nature of