It is affirmed that the German Budget will show a
deficit of nearly £1,000,000 sterling, which is expected to be permanent for some years, and will be met by an increase in the excise on beer and a tax on operations on 'Change. The latter proposal will be very strenuously resisted, and probably with success, as a productive tax would only transfer business to Paris, London, and Vienna, so that the weight of the deficit will probably fall on beer. That is a good thing. A fine of a penny an evening on every adult German will bring home to him the cost of mili- tary organisation, and disabuse him of the notion that war has only to be successful to be inexpensive. A very little direct annoyance often impresses men much more strongly than larger losses, which they can attribute to any cause they please.
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