The Sequel Part 13

CHAPTER XX.

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 1,180,000,000. Germany, Austria and Turkey had 8,800,000 men and had spent 1,282,000,000. 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 9,000,000,000 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 ma.s.ses, 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 50,000,000, and the actual cost had been 1,250,000,000!

Then he would think very hard.

If he were French he would remember that before the war opened France had a permanent debt of 1,269,223,600, or 32.05 for every man, woman and child.

If he were Russian he would remember that before the war the national debt was 1,461,000,000, with annual loss of revenue from the Vodka monopoly of 140,000,000.

If he were German he would remember that the war tax had been 74,700,000, and that the war had cost 2,770,000,000.

One question would come into the minds of those 18,000,000 thinkers. Who was going to pay for this loss of 9,000,000,000?

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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 cla.s.s supported by its own exertions--the working cla.s.s. 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 compet.i.tion 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 compet.i.tion 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 'sc.r.a.ps 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 const.i.tutional 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 a.s.serted 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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sembly.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXI.

Into Berlin.

It seemed strange at the time that the Allies' forces were being kept out of Berlin till the elections were decided. The wisdom of it was afterwards ascertained, however.