Footing the Bill.
It is difficult at this distant date to give in detail the story of the
riot that began in Berlin and thundered round the earth toward the end
of 1915.
While the Great War was under way the belligerents were like gamblers
crowded round a table, as they threw down their millions in men and
money to beat the whirling finger of Fate.
Great Britain and her Allies had 12,600,000 men and had spent
L1,180,000,000. Germany, Austria and Turkey had 8,800,000 men and had
spent L1,282,000,000. When the awful game was over there were over
18,000,000 people to go back to civil life, many of whom were crippled.
Withal the belligerents had lost over L9,000,000,000 in direct
expenditure, loss of production and capitalised value of the human
sacrifice.
These 18,000,000 men were flung back into civil life at a time when
almost all productive industry was crippled or paralysed. The world
could not immediately reorganise her industries and taxation promised to
be colossal.
When men came back to their homes, or what was left of them, took off
their uniforms and put their guns behind the doors, they sat down and
pondered. They began to count up the cost and wondered how to foot the
bill.
One can, therefore, easily understand they did not form a high opinion
of the wisdom of those who had governed them and exacted unquestioning
obedience from them.
Was it any wonder then that they should consider they might as well take
a hand in governing? They could not make a worse mess of things than
those who claimed to have had a divine commission for the job. When the
masses, who had furnished the bulk of the soldiers, began to think, the
position became dangerous, especially as real thinking had stopped
fifteen months before and there was a call for overtime in thinking to
make up.
The man with the gun would remember that before Britain entered the war
there was a heavy tax per head. He would find out that though Britain
had been attempting to cheer herself up during the war with a motto of
"Business as Usual," her exports had diminished by L50,000,000, and the
actual cost had been L1,250,000,000!
Then he would think very hard.
If he were French he would remember that before the war opened France
had a permanent debt of L1,269,223,600, or L32.05 for every man, woman
and child.
If he were Russian he would remember that before the war the national
debt was L1,461,000,000, with annual loss of revenue from the Vodka
monopoly of L140,000,000.
If he were German he would remember that the war tax had been
L74,700,000, and that the war had cost L2,770,000,000.
One question would come into the minds of those 18,000,000 thinkers. Who
was going to pay for this loss of L9,000,000,000?
One answer came from Germany.
It was voiced by Wilbrid the Humanist.
The "psychological" had arrived for sounding the note of revolt. It was
struck and echoed round the earth; even throughout America!
"Europe is filled with human wrecks," Wilbrid preached.
"All the time the physical stamina of Europe was being destroyed on the
battlefield, national debts piled up, adding phenomenal burdens to the
already crushing taxes cast on the toilers.
"Millions still unborn must toil the harder and live the meaner for
every day of the monstrous lunacy.
"There is only one reason for the ocean of blood and tears.
"Eighty per cent. of the world's population belong to a class supported
by its own exertions--the working class. It only gets back half the
wealth it produces; the other half goes to the 20 per cent. that does
not toil; but as that 20 per cent. cannot consume that half, markets
must be found for what is over, and some nation must yield markets,
colonies and dumping grounds to another nation able to put into the
field stronger battalions and deadlier guns. Those conditions must be
altered or this peace will be only an armed truce.
"War can be abolished by giving the 80 per cent. who produce the result
of their efforts, instead of paying it to the 20 per cent.; in short,
let all the results of labor go toward the Common Good.
"Men should work for humanity generally, not for an individual. That
system would kill competition in manufacture between individuals and
nations.
"All men should be prepared to fight for humanity, not for an
individual. That would kill monarchy.
"The Great War debts can be paid by taxing those 20 per cent.
non-workers who have been taking more than their share since time began.
"It is those non-workers that made the war by their competition for
trade, for individual power and personal wealth. So let them pay for it.
"The age of individualism ended with the war. There will be no further
need for that 'joke of the ages' at Hague. A 'Palace of Peace' erected
by a 'millionaire'! No wonder the Hague conventions were 'scraps of
paper.'"
It was such doctrines that brought about the revolution.
It was not a revolution of force, although at its outset a mob of
irresponsibles stoned the Government offices in Berlin. The distinctive
note preached by the Humanists was abolition of armed force and reform
by constitutional means. So when Wilbrid's mighty "Army of Humanity"
marched through Berlin as a demonstration of numbers, half of its ranks
were soldiers. But they walked with arms reversed as a proof of the
death of "Armed Force."
The presence of the soldiers in the crowd was evidently misunderstood at
Potsdam, for that day the Kaiser and his staff fled and the Government
resigned.
Then the wonderful organising ability of Brother Wilbrid asserted
itself. Within a few days the socialistic doctrines of the Humanists
covered Germany.
The doctrines found ready acceptance. The Humanists pointed out that
their advocacy of the control of production by the Government for the
Common Good was not so novel in its application.
They showed that, before the war, the railways were Government-owned,
and it was ready to nationalise the electrical industry.
They showed that, during the war, every nation had taken over railway
traction and was manufacturing and supplying to citizens certain
necessaries of life.
They showed that in Britain for many years men who had argued that the
Government should take over and operate the privately-owned railways
were looked upon as revolutionaries, extremists and fanatics; yet on the
very day war was declared the British Government reached out and seized
every railroad and began to operate it.
"During the war Germany was manufacturing and supplying citizens with
food, clothing and shelter," preached Wilbrid. "If Governments can do
that for the sake of war they can do it for the sake of peace. If they
can operate clothing factories to clothe soldiers, they can operate them
to clothe citizens. If they can operate food factories to feed soldiers
on the firing line, they can operate food factories to feed starving
citizens. If such things can be done to destroy life, they can do these
things to preserve it."
These fantastic phrases struck home.
The fact was that the masses foresaw colossal taxation following the
war, and jumped at any opportunity of letting some one else pay it.
It was the old story of the "have-nots" and the "haves," with the result
that the Reichstag became almost unanimously a Humanist assembly.
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