The New Germany Part 7

And most serious loss of all--she has lost for a time, anyway, all will to work. Improvement in food and general conditions of life will do something for this, socialisation of industry and introduction of the Council system would do more, but it will take time. Even if Germany obtained at once a return of energy, a reopening of markets, a re-entry of raw material and a free recourse to foreign capital, and she will have to wait long for all of these, even so it seems very doubtful whether she could make a living under such a load of debt.

This will mean the emigration of from ten to twenty million Germans in the course of the next few years, to the West if it is open to them, but otherwise to the East. Germany will, in fact, be brought down to the political and economic conditions of Portugal.

We pursued this policy of ruining Germany for a century because we were still under the impression of animosities and anxieties that belonged to war conditions. Our att.i.tude was that the Allies should get what they could out of Germany while they could; and if the attempt ruined Germany, Germany had deserved it.

This was the att.i.tude that prevailed during the armistice period. But the Peace of Versailles has inaugurated a more systematic and far-reaching exploitation. This is no place to review its economic and financial provisions; but no one could read them without realising that our policy is apparently to make Germany work for us as its bankers, brokers, shippers and creditors with unlimited claims. To take a rake-off as merchants and middlemen from all German manufactures and to set up a receivership over Germany that we call a Reparation Commission, with the right to claim any remaining profit.

The powers of this receivership are such as to prevent the development of any German compet.i.tion with us in the conduct or control of German production. Combined with the claims for damages these powers would, indeed, make all government impossible. For example, under them Germany is liable to pay the pension claims of the dependents of Sikhs, Senegalese or South Carolina negroes to the exclusion of its own wounded and widows. But the policy, in so far as a compilation of the unchecked schedules and uncriticised schemes of war profiteers can be said to have a policy, is that of making the German workmen produce for British Big Business. The functions ascribed to the so-called "Reparation Commission" represent an attempt to make the German proletariat work under foreign exploitation. Experiments in foreign financial control we have had in Eastern Europe, with semi-civilised peoples; but this is an attempt to set up foreign economic control over a people which in industry had won for itself the first place in Europe. At first sight one is inclined to reject this policy as a practical impossibility; but so extreme is the debility of Germany, and so exceptional the docility of the people, that I am inclined to think it might have had some temporary and partial success but for one thing--the Council movement and the demands of the workmen for the socialisation of industry.

Without some measure of socialisation of industry, without some measure of political representation through Councils, the unemployed will not return to work and the employed will only work in fitful intervals between strikes.

Between the November revolution and the end of February the coalminers alone forfeited 23 million marks of wages in more or less meaningless strikes; and this was before the great strikes of the spring, which had an obvious political purpose. This is three times the loss incurred in the last pre-war strike of 1912. The decrease in production rose from a quarter-million tons in December to a million in February, and this was little compared with the loss that followed, estimated at no less than ten million tons.

During the first six months of 1919 there were always at least a million and a half workmen drawing an unemployment pay of about two-thirds of their average wage.[D] Add to this outlay that of the force raised to prevent the workmen from realising their revolution--the seven hundred thousand Frei-Corps, engaged at such a high pay that this Prussian volunteer force of to-day is budgeted for at the same total as the vast German armies that dominated Europe before the war. It is curious that Germany should now be paying the same amount to terrorise a few working quarters that it paid five years ago to terrorise the world. And the second attempt is as hopeless as the first, for the revolution will not be denied. Even the bureaucratic Social-Democrats of the present Government recognise this and try to placate it with words.

"Socialisation has come," proclaim the Government posters all over Berlin, and when I was in Berlin I thought I'd see if I could find it.

First, I went to the special department responsible, where in a commandeered hotel I was introduced by a charming lady typist to an equally charming temporary official. He was an enthusiastic alpinist, and asked affectionately after my brother and other English climbers; and, finally, with the help of the typist we unearthed some pamphlets and propaganda leaflets. It was quite a shock on leaving to find oneself in the Wilhelmstra.s.se, not in Whitehall. Then I tried Westminster--I mean Weimar--where I found two Government Bills being shoved through in a great hurry, because the Socialist supporters of the Government had, like me, been investigating what was behind the posters and pamphlets, and had found only brick walls and bureaucrats.

And to what does it all amount? Practically nothing, except as regards the coal industry, and so far rather less than nothing there. But the course of events is instructive and particularly interesting for us.

The German coal industry, even more than ours, has in the last quarter-century become a monopoly under control of great capitalist combines. Their power is not affected either by the State-owned Prussian mines or by any possibility of new coalfields, as these are either held in reserve by the combines or are too unremunerative to compete. Already before the war this monopoly had been recognised by all parties as not in the public interest; but "nationalisation" in the sense of State exploitation was prejudiced by the poor results given by the State-owned properties of the Saar fields.

This inferiority was due not to inferior industry on the part of the workmen but to inferior initiative and independence in the management.

What effect over-papered, under-paid officialdom can have on the productiveness of a coalfield is shown in the following annual percentages of total production:

Westphalia. Silesia. Saar.

Year. Private. Private. State.

1860 26.6 24.7 19.5 1880 53.0 23.8 12.6 1890 55.2 26.2 9.4 1910 59.9 24.4 9.3 1913 60.2 22.8 8.9

But with the revolution came an alternative to "nationalisation"--"socialisation"--in which all those connected with the coal industry should have an interest in it. An autonomous guild might preserve initiative and energy; while the interest of the consumer and of the community might be safeguarded by representation in the Guild and by State supervision.

A beginning was made towards such a solution in regulations, pa.s.sed in the first months of the revolution, recognising the functions of the Workmen's Councils and attempting to reconcile their activities with expert administration and official supervision. No progress was, however, made by Weimar during the spring in this practical process of working through a sort of Whitley Council system to a sort of Guild Socialism; and the general strike of March found the Government with nothing in particular to which it could refer its critics.

Accordingly two Acts were hurriedly run through the a.s.sembly. One, the "Socialisation Bill," recorded the right of the citizen to employment or to support (amended to reserve "personal liberty")--the right of the State to socialise all economic enterprises (restricted by amendment to cases of urgent necessity and adequate compensation)--the administration of socialised industries by autonomous guilds--(amended to include the State or other Government authorities). And from this it will be seen that an Act intended to establish general "socialisation" in principle, on a basis of expropriation was amended into one contemplating "nationalisation" in urgent cases, with compensation.

A clause in this Act required immediate application of the principle of socialisation to coal mines, and a Coal Bill has accordingly also been pa.s.sed. By this the State takes over the industry and entrusts it to a Coal Board, reserving the right to regulate prices. Nothing is said as to the composition of this Board, but nothing is changed in the proprietary basis of the industry further than its organisation in regional syndicates.

There is also to be an Expert Council, representing employers, workmen, and officials equally. The retail coal trade remains untouched.

As to "Socialisation" generally, the reports of the Socialisation Commission have all been rejected and the Commission, that last relic of the revolution, resigned as long ago as May. The recommendations of Wissels, an active Minister, had as little success and he resigned in June.

The Government had promised that socialisation was to be established in the Const.i.tution; but Art. 156 of the Const.i.tution does no more than give the State the power to "socialise" and syndicalise industry, while Art. 155 says that private royalties are to be legislatively transferred to the State.

Therefore, in spite of plaintive posters, it is not communistic socialisation, but capitalistic syndicalisation, that has been introduced in Germany. While loudly proclaiming a step forward, the Government has taken a long stride back.[E]

"Socialisation" has not as yet affected the economic basis of the Prussianism that we have been fighting. This basis was a coalition between the old political interest of the landed proprietors and the new political interest of the captains of industry, or, to express it shortly, between the Junkers and the Jews. The free trade and liberalism that kept Great Britain from "Prussianism" in spite of the power retained by a few feudal families and the landed gentry was due to the different relationship in England between the upper and middle cla.s.ses. In England our "Junkers" and "Jews" coalesced during our great industrial development, perhaps because our upper cla.s.s had already more Jews than Junkers. In Germany they remained apart but combined for their own interests. We have seen to what extent the revolution has threatened the economic authority of the captain of industry--the industrial profiteer. Is the feudal landed proprietor also threatened?

The first effort of the revolution further east in Russia, Hungary and the Baltic States has been to "socialise" land. Either, where the agricultural industry is primitive, as in Russia, by simply dividing up the land among the peasants, or where it is progressive, as in the model-farm estates of Hungary, by putting the estate under control of a council of workers as though it was a factory. But in Germany the urban character of the revolution, which has accounted for the comparative ease with which the Government have coerced it, is shown by land tenure being as yet little affected. The only definite action against the large landed estates, that I know of, is a measure of the Prussian a.s.sembly postponing action until 1921. This characteristic procrastination is, of course, explained to the revolutionaries as merely allowing a short period for voluntary breaking up of the big estates, and to the reactionaries as a postponement of all action.

Meantime financial conditions in Germany are quite as favourable to the dispersal of large estates as with us; for wherever the farming system obtains the farmers have made even larger fortunes in Germany than in England. But the system of landed tenure is much more varied in Germany. There is a large proportion of freeholders and copyholders, while big estates are farmed by bailiffs with hired labourers.

In the region of these big estates--the land of the Junker (Mecklenburg, Pomerania and Brandenburg)--the revolution is openly defied. The agrarians of these regions not long ago had a regular trial of strength with the present _regime_, and though worsted were none the worse.

The strength of the German revolution is in labour, its weakness is in the land.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] To end of 1918.

[C] The advertis.e.m.e.nt columns of the daily papers, those most trustworthy of doc.u.ments, told many a tale of distress. Here is one such advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"Valuable violin--Antonius Stradivarius Cremonentis, authentic, will exchange for provisions: meat, sugar preferred."

But it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, and if it blows away the family heirloom it blows off the mortgage on the family property:--

"Summer holidays in peace and plenty. Farmhouse in Harz mountains will receive family and provide them with farm produce, milk, b.u.t.ter, eggs, etc., in return for redemption of mortgage of 10,000 marks."

[D] The following percentages of unemployment during and after the war may be of interest:--

Average Month. 1908- 1914. 1915. 1916. 1917. 1918.

1913.

Jan. 3.1 4.7 6.5 2.6 1.7 0.9 Feb. 2.8 3.7 5.1 2.8 1.6 0.8 March 2.3 2.8 3.3 2.2 1.3 0.9 April 2.2 2.8 2.9 2.3 1.0 0.8 May 2.3 2.8 2.9 2.5 1.0 0.8 June 2.3 2.5 2.5 2.5 0.9 0.8 July 2.2 2.9 2.7 2.4 0.8 0.7 Aug. 2.2 22.4 2.6 2.2 0.8 0.7 Sept. 2.1 15.7 2.6 2.1 0.8 0.8 Oct. 2.1 10.9 2.5 2.0 0.7 0.7 Nov. 2.2 8.2 2.5 1.7 0.7 1.8 Dec. 3.2 7.2 2.6 1.6 0.9 5.4

[E] To do justice to the German revolution I annex a schedule of measures pa.s.sed by the Peoples Commissaries before the Weimar Parliament met and reaction set in. How far these are being at present enforced I do not know.

Unemployment provision--regulations of 13th November and 15th January.

The cost is borne one-half by the Reich, one-third by the State and one-sixth by the locality. The rates must be reduced by April, 1919, to a maximum of six marks per day. It can be withdrawn on refusal to work for insufficient reasons.

Employment regulations of 4th and 25th January. Previous employes on demobilisation must be re-employed and persons employed in their absence only discharged under certain conditions.

Legislative regulations of labour. An order of 12th November, 1918, restored to force all sanitary and social regulations and restrictions suspended during the war.

Labour disputes. Settlement regulated by order of 23rd December, 1918, which sets up workmen's committees responsible for questions of wages, etc.

Prohibition of night baking, 23rd November, 1918.

Prevention of venereal diseases, 11th and 17th December. This measure penalises with three years' imprisonment those exposing others to infection even ignorantly and prescribes compulsory medical attendance.

CHAPTER V

COUNCIL GOVERNMENT

From its present position and at its present pace the Weimar Parliament will never overtake events. I remember once as a boy pointing out to a cavalcade in red coats jogging along a by-lane that the hunt was off in a different direction.

"The hounds, you mean," said an old gentleman severely; "we are the hunt," and they all jogged happily on.

Meantime the dogs of war--of civil war between the const.i.tutional and council movements, between Conservatives and Communists--are still running at a fearful pace and quite out of hand. The workmen will not work unless some real socialisation is introduced, and this is only possible if more steam be brought into the political machine than the parliamentary system can raise. Socialisation and reconstruction have been going back, not forward. The Socialisation Commission and the responsible Minister have both resigned, because Weimar would not give effect to their mildly socialistic recommendations. Yet nothing can save Germany from bankruptcy and Bolshevism but a re-energising and reorganising of the people for peace at least as effective as that they underwent in the war. Nothing can do this but a new ideal and new inst.i.tutions. And the ideal of direct political power for the workmen and the inst.i.tution of an industrial councils system is, so, far as I can see, alone capable of drawing out such force as is still left and of driving the country through the slough of war weariness and waste.