I T is only occasionally that the finance of foreign countries
has an interest for Englishmen. Ordi- narily speaking, the demands of the national expenditure and the methods by which the national revenue is raised have no true political character. They concern the people who have to find the money, and no one else. Continental Europe has been genuinely indifferent to the successive additions to the English Income-tax. There are excep- tions, however, to this rule, and the finance of the German Empire is one of them. The spectacle of a great Empire which, in a time of European peace, and subjected to no greater strain than a native insurrection in an African colony, is unable to make both ends meet, is too unusual to be passed over. What is the reason for this strange inequality between policy and the ability to translate policy into action ? In England the relation between the two things is simple enough. The Government of the day wishes to carry out a particular policy, and asks Parliament to provide it with the means. If Parliament is of the same mind, the necessary taxes are imposed. If Parliament thinks the demand unreasonable, the Govern- ment goes out, and the Opposition try their hands at a different policy, or at working the same policy on cheaper lines. Except in time of war, when even economic laws are suspended, no Government thinks of raising money by loans. A refusal to vote the necessary taxes would be taken as equivalent to a condemnation of the object on which these taxes were to be spent. There is no parallel to this state of things in Germany. It is frankly admitted that new taxes would be unpopular; but the inference from this is, not that the expenditure to meet which these taxes are wanted must be foregone, but only that it must be met by borrowed money. The methods of an autocracy are applied to a constitutional system. They are applied, moreover, with singular frankness. We are living, said the Finance Minister on Saturday last, from hand to mouth. "I cannot conceal from you that the prospect is a very dismal one." The Government will have to borrow more than £14,000,000 to meet the needs of the coming financial year. Even this sum will not cover the cost of the reinforcements now under orders for South Africa, and when this source of expenditure is at an end the ordinary Estimates will be "permanently and heavily burdened" by charges for interest. "I have no hesitation in declaring quite frankly that it is impossible to go on in the way we are going." Language of this kind is not quite unknown in the House of Commons. But there it is generally used by a speaker on the Opposition benches. In Germany, however, it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who tells Parliament that retrenchment is impossible, that expendi- ture must go on growing, that the national revenue must be increased in proportion,—and sits down with the announce- ment of fresh loans and not a syllable about fresh taxes. Baron von Stengel can only be compared to a dentist's patient who protests that the tooth must come out, but wishes to postpone the operation to another day. He makes no attempt to disguise the situation. He is not sanguine about the yield of the new Custom-duties, "for the tariff system has never been regarded from the fiscal point of view." Any increase on one of these duties, that on grain, is already appropriated to pensions for the widows and orphans of working men. In short, "the one thing at present certain is that the deficit with which Germany has had to contend for a long time past will be increased by serious fresh expenditure in the next few years." There is the German prospect.
This amazing statement was criticised on the following day by two leaders of parties. Herr Bebel, the Socialist leader, paid a well-merited tribute to the Finance Minister's frankness. His speech, he said, "ought to be placarded at every street corner." But he made short work of Baron von Stengers demonstration of the im- possibility of reducing expenditure. He set no store by Germany's Colonial Empire. What is the use of keeping territory which brings you in no return ? A loss of that kind had better be cut short at once. Probably Herr Bebel is quite right. We question whether her colonies are of any real value to Germany. But it is idle to expect from a foreign Power a kind of sacrifice which we certainly should not make ourselves. The strongest reason against hasty and unnecessary acquisitions of territory is the im- possibility of getting rid of them afterwards. Herr Bebel is on surer ground when he criticises the Naval Estimates. If the Imperial Chancellor is right in saying that there can be no thought of war between Germany and England, where is the need of a great navy ? In England there is a very general belief that the sole purpose of the fleet now in course of construction is to strike a blow at England. In Herr Bebel's opinion, that is a very natural supposition. Whatever Count von Billow may say now, the chief argu- ment put forward for the new naval programme five or six years ago was that the ships were needed "to render impossible any attacks upon German commerce by Great Britain." If this delusion is at an end, why persevere with the programme to which it gave birth ? Herr Bebel is undoubtedly right in his reading of English opinion. We did think that the new naval programme was directed against England. We thought this for the obvious reason that there was no other way of accounting for it. And if there was no other way then, still less is there any other way now. Herr Bebel seems to us to speak only an obvious truth when he describes the danger of a simultaneous attack by Russia and France upon Germany as "removed into the distant future" by the course of events in the Far East. Count von Billow, who followed Herr Bebel in the debate,,had thus a delicate task laid upon him. He had to disclaim all idea of a war with England, and yet to establish the necessity of a strong Navy. As regards the first point, nothing could be better than the temper of his speech. He denounced the long journalistic campaign which has had for its object the disturbance of pacific relations between Germany and England. He argued that to-day a nation had nothing to gain by the overthrow of one of its maritime rivals, and dwelt on the enormous damage which even the most successful war would inflict on the commerce of both combatants. But he gave no hint of any pause in the naval programme. The Fleet had only a defensive object in view now, and it would have no other object in view in the future. We welcome these assurances from the lips of the Imperial Chancellor, and we are willing to believe that they express his personal con- victions at the present moment. But we cannot regard them as equally convincing from the point of view of German opinion. Count von Billow admits that there has been a journalistic campaign designed to embitter the relations between Germany and England, but he says that the Govern- ment has had nothing to do with it. Then what has been the motive of those who initiated it and carried it on ? If it was not to please the Government, it can only have been to please their readers. That is to say, there is a feeling among a section of the German people in favour of a war with England. That is a much less serious thing, no doubt, than a deliberate purpose of the same kind on the part of the Government, but, none the less, it is an element of danger which circumstances might easily make formid- able. The Imperial Chancellor's kindly and reasonable words would have come with additional force if he had been able to add that, in view of the near approach to bankruptcy of German finance, the Government had determined to postpone the completion of the new naval programme till better times.
The Abate had another feature of interest in the speech of the leader of the Centre. In one sense, indeed, his words have more weight than those of any other speaker, because if the Centre were minded to oppose the Govern- ment, the work of Parliament must pretty well come to a standstill. They hold the balance between German parties, and they use their power with a single eye to the attain- ment of certain specific objects. From this point of view Dr. Spahn's speech deserves study. He is entirely in favour of economy, but he says nothing about the most obvious of possible savings, the postponement of the naval programme. The Centre, he says, have always protested against the Colonial policy of the Government, and against the increase in the Army. They are opposed to the present plan of voting loans in aid of the ordinary Estimates. They dis- like the system on which the contributions are distributed among the separate States of the Empire. They will not hear of any further duties on beer or tobacco. Here we seem to have a complete Opposition programme. The Government are challenged at every point except one. But that is the one on which the Emperor's heart is believed to be specially set. The Centre have consistently made Prince Bismarck's maxim their own. Their votes in Par- liament are always regulated by the principle Do ut des. We are free-handed so long, and so long only, as you are free-handed in return. If we vote for your Navy, it must be on the understanding that the Government support is given to this or that measure which we have at heart. Had not the Centre had good ground for thinking that support of the naval programme would in the Emperor's eyes outweigh opposition to many other Ministerial projects, we may be pretty sure they would not have passed over such an obvious means of ensuring the economy which, in their character of a people's party, they are genuinely anxious to promote. We may gather from Dr. Spahn's speech that the Emperor is as much set as ever upon the possession of a strong Navy, and that on this point he will encounter no effective resistance from the governing party in the Reichstag.
THE BOER CONGRESS.
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