As to the methods of raising money, the Government con-
fesses that the yield of the levy on incomes "cannot be even approximately estimated "; and the yield of the more important levy on capital is hardly more definitely predicted, as it is admitted that the Government possesses no more than a rough reckoning of the amount of capital liable to taxation. Such a vague financial scheme has never before been presented to the Reichstag. The basis of the levy on property, known as the Wehrbeitrag, is a subscription of a half per cent. of the value of property above the £500 line. The tax is not graduated. The levy on incomes begins at incomes of £2,500 a year and amounts to an immediate pay- ment of two per cent. unless the taxed person has already been called upon to pay as large a sum upon capital. Apart from the special levies, the new taxes for recurring expenditure will involve a rearrangement of the financial relation of the States and the Imperial Government, and that is a very old and a very sore point. Probably the Government will somehow raise most of the money it wants, but we cannot believe that it will raise it in the manner suggested. There would be a general realization of capital to pay the levy (even though a delay of three years is allowed), and the result would be a dangerous collapse on the Bourse. The scheme is too mad.
