Germans Dismayed By Army Tax Plans.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 4, 1913:
Papers Say Levying on Fortunes Has Hitherto Been a Last Resort In Time of War.
MONEY NOW VERY SCARCE
Banks Unwilling to Lend on First-Class Security — Kaiser Said to Have Originated Tax Project.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, March 3.— It is hardly going too far to say that Germany is stunned by the project to spend $250,000,000 at one blow on the increase of the army. Consternation no less profound is caused by the proposal to raise money by levying on private fortunes a non-recurring tax, which, it is expected, will approximate $25.50 on every $500.
    This levy is everywhere described as a "war tax." To-night's Lokal Anzeiger declares that the idea of it originated with the Kaiser. His Majesty, it is stated, discussed the scheme with his brother German sovereigns, and received their "joyful assent," both to this proposal and to the suggestion that the ruling Princes of the empire should on this occasion forego their right of exemption from taxation.
    The Government's intention to make the propertied classes bear the chief cost of strengthening the army coincides with almost unprecedented stringency on the German money market. The banks are curtailing credits in a most rigid manner. Cash advances are not made even to the best customers and on first-class security, except with the utmost reluctance. Merchants are experiencing difficulty in renewing loans for three months, and renewals, if granted at all, cost between 7 and 8 per cent.
    The Government's determination to embark on a new armaments competition evokes nothing but groans from the journals representing the financial and commercial elements. The Frankfurter Zeitung says:
    "When we hear these gigantic figures we must take our heads in our hands and ask if, in all conscience, they can really be a result of serious consideration. One is rather forced to the conclusion that they are a product of a veritable state of  armaments drunkenness, and that the Government has been stampeded by progressive suggestion into underwriting heedlessly all the demands of the military men without giving a second thought to either ways or means."
    The Vossische Zeitung says: "The resort to a tax on fortunes is equivalent to a declaration of the bankruptcy of our whole financial administration. The Government, being at a loss to know where to find money, has recourse to the last desperate extreme, hitherto only invoked in the emergency of war. For its counterpart we must hark back to the middle ages, when empires were without financial systems."
    The Boersen Courier, the organ of the Stock Exchange, says: "One imposes a tax of this sort only in times of the gravest need, when it is urgent to act quickly because the enemy is at the gate and the necessity for national sacrifice is imperative. In times of peace, amid which we are, after all, still living, one should avoid invoking extremes which can easily awaken the impression that they are the last sheet anchor of a financially impoverished country."