Evening star., 1923-09-30
Can Europe Hold Together?
XVIl-POland-A Victim of MiIitarism
BY JOHN r. SINCLAIR.

Ladislas Grabski had been premier
OF the republic of Poland. When /
saw him in Warsaw in July of this
year he was finance minister. He did
not speak English, so Count Marke-
vitz, the husband of Countess Marke-
vitz of Irish fame, acted as inter-
prefer. Yes. the Polish government
budget would be balanced-some day.
Imports and exports would balance
some time. When? That was i'm
possible to say. But Poland some
how would stumble up the hill to
peace and prosperity-if she could
hold together long enough.
In theory the republic of Poland
should be one of the most substantial
countries of Europe. Here are 3d.
100000 people, two-thirds of whom
are Poles. living in an area U24.097
| square miles) about the size of Wis
consin and North Dakota combined.
One-half of the people are engaged
| in agriculture and the other half in
| industry. She is rich in timber, oil,
coal, iron, zinc and water power. She
has large cotton and woolen plants,
! mostly owned by foreigners. She
has fifty cities of $4,000 people and
over.
I'VE think we can balance our
budget by 1924. That is excluding
| the deficit on the railroads. BY 1926
we will balance the budget entirely"
declared Mr.. Grabski
You mean that by 1926 you will be
! able to pay all your government ex-
| penses by receipts from taxes"
; inquired
raise from taxes as much as we can
and the deficit we will get by selling
government bonds to banks and in
vestors, so that we can stop making
| up our deficits as we do now, by
printing more and more unsecured
money. That's our policy"
So that was it. The finance minis
ter would be satisfied to be able to
recover enough government credit on
which to borrow, to take care of the
mounting government defcits-just as
France is doing. The finance minister
brought out his official figures to show
that the government this year was
reducing the issue of paper money
each month. Here were his figures:
Six hundred and sixty-seven billions
Of new marks issued in March, 1923;
400 billions of new marks issued in
April, 1928; 215 billions of new marks
issued in May, 1928. He was quite
confident of success in cutting down
the volume of new paper. Then the
June and July figures came out. with
the following record of new paper
issued: S33 billions Of marks issued in
June, 1923; 912 billions Of paper marks
issued in July, 1929.
The record of Poland in putting out
gG-I. ~
These figures are in millions of
marks.
December 81. 1918, total paper money
outstanding, 1,024; 1919. 5,316; 1920.
49.ss2; 1891, 22s,53s; 1922, 7s3,4s7:
July 1, 1928, 4.47S,000.
What does this mean?
For one thing. Polish money Is un-
At to be used for doing. business.
These figures will show that.
June 80, 1919: it took i marks a.s to
142 marks; 1921. 2.075 marks; 1922.
4,675 marks; 1928, 10000 marks.
Imitation. Increasing prices. De-
creasing paper money value. Debtor
class robbing creditor class. Increas-
ing difficulty Of balancing govern
ing. Increasing paper wages. and de-
creasing real wages. Decreasing
standard of living. A slowing down
of business
Polands troubles started with her
first budget of 1920. Her expendi-
lures for that year were $4,000. 600. 900
marks and the receipts were 1Lo0o.-
000, 900. Yet her military expenses
were $4,000, 100000. To put It in an
other way, for every dollar which
Poland spent for that year she raised
12 cents from her. people. with which
to pay The balance came from print