RICH GERMANS ABROAD.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Many letters and articles have from time to time appeared in English papers calling attention to the fact that Italy and Switzerland have been invaded by a most objectionable class .of German, and that in many cases such people, themselves drinking champagne, have not been ashamed to look on whilst a subscription list for starving German children was being circulated among the English and other foreigners sitting in the same restaurant.
It is impossible to deny that there is much truth in such statements, and my object is to assure your readers of the disgust with which such conduct is viewed by the real upper and middle classes in Germany and Austria. These latter classes, which have supplied all Germany's great writers, musicians, thinkers and artists, are almost without exception in very great straits, and in many cases on the brink of starvation, but little is heard of their distress, for such people hide rather than parade their poverty. It is only War profiteers who can now afford to travel.
The German Government has attempted by means of taxation to prevent such people from going abroad, but effective legislation in this matter has unfortunately proved impossible, whereas the profiteers have succeeded in alienating foreign sympathy with the great suffering which exists in these unfortunate countries.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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