The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-01

paying, and the captain of industry said:
 ''The high dividends of Germany are looked upon as proof of prosperi- ty; they are not. The fall of the mark has been such that the shares in companies do not represent the investment. The man who had 100 marks or s25 so placed in 1914, got five marks or S1.25 when his com pany paid a five per cent dividend. For that he could buy 100 eggs. He has the same capital in marks today and if his dividend has increased to D per cent it amounts to only 25 pa per marks or one-eighth of a cent which will note buy one-tenth of an egg. This shows what our big divi- dends mean and what the paper in- comes and paper dividends amount to when reduced to the common denomi- nator of the cost of living. It is what one can get for his money, and not its face value, that determines its purchasing power. This applies to all sorts of investments and all kinds of purchases. A man, who at the end of the war had a thousand marks or S2o0 in saving bank, finds that he has less than five cents. At the close of the war he might have bought 100 pairs of shoes with his savings. Today he cannot buy one pair of shoe strings. If he had turned that money into dollars at the time he put it into the bank and laid it away, it would now be worth 5000, ,006 marks instead of 1000 marks. In other words, the more you save the more you lose, or, rather, the more yoh have saved the more you have lost"
 These condition have divided Ger many into three classes of society; one is the masses who have saved in the past and who are quietly suffer- ing and dying today; another is the profiteers who are spending reck- lessly, and the third is those who are desperate and who, in q blind fury, would destroy the government and society that permits such con dittons, Germany cannot stand this long. So far, she has been the chief bulwark against BolsheVism, but if turn to the east and, if she does, goodbye to western ciVization and the civilized world"
 o o O
 A Chat With Street Car Conductor
 It is only through comparisons like above that one can get any idea of how the mark affects prices. Com ing from Muelheim to Leyerkusen, the other day, 1 rode on the stree. Cal distance of SIX miles at cost of five-eighths of a cent. Dur ing the trip l stood on the platform outside and talked with the con- ductor, He told me he was getting 5000 marks a week. which at that time was worth less than a dollar. Before the year his wages were 50 q week and that was worth far more than five times what he gets now He told me that he paid one-eighth O. his weeks wages for milk for his baby, and when l asked as to his clothes, he replied:
 Thank God my uniform comes from the street car company. My chief trouble is shoes. l ought to have a new pair, but l have not the money and so l have had my old ones half-soled. This cost me four thou sand marks or just one half my weeks wages" He thereupon lifted his foot and showed me the new leather which had been roughly tackled on.
 A Speculation In Spikes.
 I have just heard of a speculation in spikes which is a good illustration of how the mark affects business The story is that of a hardware mer- chant who bought a keg containing one thousand spikes and retailed them out by the pound at what he thought was a profit The follow ing week, when he came to order new stock, he found the mark had so fallen that it took twice as much to buy such a keg, and that his re- ceipts would buy only 800. He sold these at profit, but by the next week, when he made a new order the money he had was enough to buy only 250. All thls trme the mark was galloping downward and each sale resulted in similar loss. And so he went on keeping track of his keg of spikes until he found that the money left was enough to buy one spike. As he looked over his ac- counts he found that all of his goods were going that way. He could not make it out. He had bought every time at the market. and had sold eva cry time at profit and he had grad ually lost all he had. The result was that he took the last spike, and went up to his garret. He drove the spike into rafter, and hanged him self This shows how the gigantic rat of the falling mark is continually eating into the capital of the mer- chants of Germany Their receipts will not replace their stocks. They borrow to buy, and. no matter how high their prices, as long as they sell they continue to lose.
 Copyright. 1929. by Carpenters
 World Travels.)