Evening star., 1920-11-22
POLITICAL GRAFTERS
SWAMP GERMANY.
Ebert System SO Costly That
Even Expensive Kaiser May
Be Asked to Return.

cros..Atlantic Cable Service to The Star.
BERLIN, November 20.-The COM
rlicated machinery of government In
Germany. with its hundreds OF thou
sands of superfiuous and utterly IN
competent officials, causes the waste
lof billions of marks annually. Never
during the days Of kaiserism has Ger
Imany known a bureaucracy as nuHer-
lous as at present. Where formerly
flour or Ave officials idled away their
!time there are now twenty or thirty
Republican officials with no duties out
Ito draw their monthly salary
Nepotism and favorftism prevalI
ieyerywhere, and so complicated mas
the machinery Of state become that II
adds 80 to 40 per cent to the price OF
every pound of -four or sugar "a
toned. while every attempt 70 provlue
imore and cheaper articles o1 Iood ou., ond
nail by these officials who cling 70
their jobs like limpets.
Chances Lost to Get q. 8. Flour.
A few months ago the bakers OF
Berlin had an offer of very large
quantity of first class American nour
which would have come as mos.
W elcome addition to the scant preao
rations, but the import license was
| delayed SO long that the rise Of the
dollar made it impossible to buy ana
now a pound of very poor. coarse
iGerman flour costs almost twice as
much as the choice American hour
might have been sold for.
What further tends to increase
prices is the almost incredible care
iessness of the higher officials who
tslumber in the comfortable armcnalrs
iof the various food commissions.
(Some. time ago. for instance. the COM
mission for edible OILS and "a. an6enged
milk in the United States. Holland and
denmark, but instead of distributing
the milk, caused it to be moved ABOUT
from one damp cellar to another unul
it gave out such stencil that peo-
pie of the quarter complained 10 tne
department of health.
I Just now thousands of workers are
busily engaged in emptying the con-
tents Of the tins into barrels, and
the milk, which cost many millions
of marks, has been sold to a COM
pany manufacturing metal polish.
And this happens at time when
thousands of babies are dying OF
tuberculosis because OF the poor milk
supply.
May Call Ex-Kaiser Back.
Another example of government
mismanagement is the spirits OF mo-
nopoly When this was introduced it
was expected to- give the state
revenue Of a billion marks a year,
but instead Of providing any revenue
1t has cost the state $50 million marks
a year. Spirits are bought abroad
at II marks and sold by the gov
ernment for 80 marks.
It is little wonder then that the
kaiser has found a most fertile soil
for his efforts. and that he strongly
hopes the German people will call
him back to power. The unrest
among all classes is constantly in
creasing, and the cry for. q change
of government grows ever louder.
though so far no one has expressed
in which direction the change should
go. 1t is the aim of the ex-kaiser's
agents to focus all these cries into
q demand for the return Of the mon
archial form Of government The en-
tire German nation is actually in
despair at seeing how the course is
set toward an inevitable financial
catastrophe.
What the coming winter will bring
is impossible to say, but it IL by no
means unlikely that the hopes Of the
kaiser. that Berlin will invite him
back within twelve months. may be
realized. The kaiser was indeed an
expensive luxury. but not nearly as
| expensive as the Ebert system.