Witness to the German Revolution Read Free Page B

kilograms of cereals cost (including freight for foreign corn):
    La Plata wheat
11.5 guilders 71 or 730,000 marks
American wheat
11.7 guilders or 737,000 marks
Russian rye
8.35 guilders or 530,000 marks
German rye
610,000 marks
German wheat
850,000 marks
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    The consequence is that within one week the price of a loaf has risen from 7,000 to 20,000 marks on the free market, and from 4,200 to 10,000 (from July 23) on ration cards for the poor. From June 29 to July 5, the minimum subsistence level for a household with two children has risen by 147,000 marks a week, to a total of 919,668 according to the official index. Between July 10 and 11 in Berlin, the cost of living rose by 22 percent in 24 hours. A pound of margarine went from 34,000 to 38,000 marks, an egg from 3,400 to 4,400, a pound of bacon from 35,000 to 48,000 (that is, 37 percent increase). It is true that there is talk of raising wages—every ten days.
    Such are the results of the combined efforts of a government in the service of big capital, the landowners and French imperialism.
    In working-class Germany, statistics reveal that since the new falls in value of the mark, unemployment has gone down slightly.
In May there were only 6.2 percent unemployed among trade unionists as against 7 percent in April. In the tobacco industry, the worst affected, there were only 21.5 percent as against 32.3 percent. The number of unemployed receiving assistance from various organizations (far from all of them) has fallen, in the same period of time, from 279,135 to 244,742. Industries affected by limitations on the number of hours worked employ 5,400,000 workers of whom 1,159,963 (21.7 percent) are only working shortened weeks (shoemakers, metalworkers, textiles, clothing, tobacco).
    When we remember that German workers long ago exhausted their savings and any money put aside, and that they earn a pittance even when they work full weeks, we can image the sum of wretchedness embodied in these figures. It is easy to understand the disturbances in the Rhineland and Saxony, in the course of which a certain number of unemployed have been killed by the police force of the democratic order.
    The dollar continues its dance. The Reich is devoting millions of gold marks to “stabilize the mark,” that is, to prevent it from vanishing into thin air too rapidly, and thus to favor the stock exchange speculations of the barons—or bandits—of finance. On this point, the Communist fraction in the Reichstag are asking Herr Cuno the following tricky questions: “Has the Hugo Stinnes steamer company (shipping line) been exempted from the compulsory surrender of foreign currency? Why? Is it the only one?”
    It isn’t the only one. And who can fail to understand why?
    But on the evening of July 10, the dollar, quoted at 256,000 or 266,000 marks at Gdansk, and at 276,000 marks at New York, was, thanks to government action, only at 187,000 marks at Berlin. The difference between the official and the real rate of exchange is paid by the people on small fixed incomes—the only ones affected—to the big financial establishments. That’s what they call “stabilization.”

    The Reich’s floating debt doubled in June, reaching the splendid figure of 24.9 billion marks. On June 30, there was paper money in circulation to the value of 17,291.1 billion marks.
    But if the Reich’s finances are expressed by such fabulous—negative!—figures, if the bankruptcy of the state becomes a little clearer every day, then the big financial establishments for their part seem prosperous enough. Take a look. The Diskontoge-sellschaft , the third largest bank in Germany, has published its accounts. It’s ending up with a net profit of 4.8 billion marks, that is to say, 24 times higher than last year. It is paying 250 percent dividends to its fortunate shareholders. And all these figures are doctored so as not to be too startling to people with no bread