The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 Part 7

The conference found it impossible to abolish the trade marks of German and Austrian subjects, for this would hurt the Russian consumer, who could be then easily cheated by false labels.

Two conflicting opinions prevailed in the conference. The one held that the commercial treaties between Russia and Germany (and Austria) have left the question of patents out of consideration, while the other pointed out that the commercial treaties had granted to German subjects equal rights and privileges with Russians as regards patents.

The decision seems to be a compromise between the two.

A delegation of the Moscow Merchants' a.s.sociation, consisting of Messrs.

N.N. Shustov, I.G. Volkov, and A.D. Liamin, will soon go to Petrograd to pet.i.tion the Ministers of Finance, Commerce and Industry and of the Interior for measures against German "oppression." The delegation intends to ask for the revocation of all privileges (franchises) and patents granted to Austrian, German, and Turkish subjects and for the granting to the Moscow merchants of the right to admit foreigners to the Merchants' a.s.sociation only at its own discretion.

Finally, the delegation intends to discuss with the Ministers the special fund created recently at the State Bank for the settlement of payments to foreign merchants belonging to the warring nations. With this fund Russian merchants are depositing money for their matured notes. Thus the payment for foreign goods is now better guaranteed than before. The German merchants are taking advantage of this arrangement, offering their goods to Russian consumers through their agents and branch houses and commercial agents located in neutral countries.

Therefore the new arrangement helps rather than hurts the German trade in Russia.

A Russian Income Tax

Proposed by the Ministry of Finance.

[From Russkia Vedomosti, No. 225, Oct. 1 (14), 1914.]

In the long list of new Russian taxes the income tax is the most interesting. It is still only a drafted bill. The Government hesitates to press it. Perhaps the Duma will take some steps to make this bill a law. Its main provisions are as follows:

All annual incomes of 1,000 rubles ($500) and above are to be a.s.sessed at a progressive rate ranging from 1-1/2 per cent. on 1,000 rubles to the maximum of 8 per cent. on incomes of 200,000 rubles ($100,000) and above. All persons engaged actively in the present war shall be exempt from this tax.

All persons freed from military service within the last four years are to pay an additional tax equal to 50 per cent. of their income tax, provided the incomes of the parents whose sons have been freed reach 2,000 rubles ($1,000).

All persons freed from military service having incomes below 1,000 rubles ($500) are to pay a uniform tax of 6 rubles ($3). A special war tax is to be levied in provinces where the whole population or certain groups of the population are freed from military service.

Note: For a poor country like Russia the minimum exempt from taxation is very high. The large number of able-bodied men in war would cut into this tax considerably. It has been figured out that the special 6-ruble tax on those freed from the military service would yield about 13,000,000 rubles ($6,500,000). The total revenue from this tax would hardly reach 50,000,000 rubles. Commenting upon this bill, critics have proposed to reduce the minimum exempt from taxation from 1,000 rubles ($500) to 750 rubles ($375) and to cut out the special 6-ruble war tax.

PING PONG.

By BEATRICE BARRY.

Faith, hear our soldier boys a-sighin'

'Cause Major General John O'Ryan Won't let 'em dance!

The hard-wood floors he's goin' to rip-- They may not hesitate or dip; I'm told that he was heard to say They're 'sposed to work and not to play Ping Pong!

Ping Pong!

Ping Pong!

No more about a slender waist Shall arm in uniform be placed.

He looks askance At signs of happiness and mirth; Soldiers were put upon the earth To sweat and dig in hard dirt floors, And so prepare 'emselves for war's-- Ping Pong!

Ping Pong!

Ping Pong!

I cannot say--I do not know Whether the boys would have it so; But if by chance We should engage in carnage grim, And harm, alas! should come to him-- Would they feel sorrow then, or bliss, The while they heard the bullets hiss Ping Pong, Ping Pong, Ping Pong?

Tools of the Russian Juggernaut

By M.J. Bonn.

Prof. Bonn is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Munich and German Visiting Professor to the University of California. The following article by him was published on Aug.

8, 1914, in the first week of war.

As long as hostile censors muzzle truth there is no use in discussing the European military situation. Where the ingenuity of American newspaper men has failed it would be presumptuous for any one to try.

But the question, Why are we at war? can be answered fairly well by anybody conversant with the facts of the European situation.

We are not at war because the Emperor, as war lord, has sent out word to his legions to begin a war of world-wide aggression, carrying into its vortex intellectual Germany, notwithstanding all her peaceful aspirations.

I may fairly claim to be a representative of that intellectual Germany which comes in now for a good deal of sympathy, but I must own that intellectual Germany, as far as I know about her, thoroughly approves of the Emperor's present policy.

She approves of it not on the principle merely "Right or wrong, my country"; she does so because she knows that war has become inevitable, and that we must face that ordeal when we are ready for it, not at the moment most agreeable to our enemies. If intellectual Germany wants to develop the moral and intellectual qualities of the German people she can do so only if there is peace--real peace--not endangered by the fear of some sudden and treacherous aggression.

We approve of the war because we realize that such a peace was no longer possible. Some of our critics are trying to show that we wanted a war, as we wanted the colonial empire of France.

We have, indeed, refused the demand made by England as the price for her neutrality--that we should not be allowed to take any part of France's colonial domains, even in case of complete victory.

We refused this stipulation, not because we were after those colonies, but because a so-called neutral power tried to impose conditions upon us she would never have dreamed of asking from France.

If we were hankering after conquest we would have made war long ago. We would have done so during the Morocco crisis, when Russia had not yet recovered from the j.a.panese war; when Turkey was still a mighty empire, ready to take our side, overawing the Balkan States and threatening Russia; when Rumania was our ally and when France, trying to swallow up the independent States of Morocco, but put herself morally in the wrong.

We refrained from war not because England supported France. The developments of the last week have shown that we are ready to face England, too, when needs must be. We decided for peace because we were convinced that no amount of colonial aggrandizement could compensate us for the dangers and horrors of a big European war.

Our diplomatic methods during those days may have been brusque and annoying, but our aim was peace. Though we are held up continually as the disturber of European peace, driven on by a mad desire for territorial aggrandizement, we are the only big European nation which has not increased her territory during the last twenty-five years.

Russia tried to steal the Far East and is now going half shares with England in Persia. England annexed the Boer republics and is playing with Russia for the Persian States.

France has taken Morocco; Italy, Tripoli; Austria-Hungary has formally annexed Bosnia.

Even little Servia, who is praised just now as the most just and G.o.d-fearing nation, has succeeded in wresting a large part of Macedonia, inhabited by Bulgarians, from her Bulgarian allies.

The only conquest we went in for was an exchange of a strip of West Africa, which we got from France as a kind of hush money, for her Morocco policy, England, Italy, and Spain having taken their payment in advance.

We have led no war of aggression for new territories, and we are held up to moral contempt by all those nations who have taken their shares.

We went to war because we had to keep faith with Austria. We do not and we did not approve of every step our ally has taken. But our idea of a faithful alliance is not that you can chuck your partner whenever he has made a mistake, but that you must stick to him through good and evil.

You may upbraid him privately if you dislike his methods; you may give him a fair warning, but as long as your bargain exists you must stick to it.