Royal Highness

by Thomas Mann

The speech was the most palliatory that had ever been heard, each humiliating fact from outside being counter-balanced by some virtuous trait or other in the people. He began by praising the industrious spirit of the whole country; then admitted that there was no actual increase to show in any branch of manufacture, so that the sources of revenue failed to show under any head the fertility that could be desired. He remarked with satisfaction how the feeling for the public good and economical self-sacrifice were spreading more and more through the population; and then declared without mincing matters that “notwithstanding a general most acceptable increase in the taxation returns as the result of the influx of wealthy foreigners” (meaning Mr. Spoelmann) “any relaxation of the calls on the said noble self-sacrifice was not to be thought of.”

Even without this, he continued, it had been impossible to budget for all the objects of the financial policy, and should it prove that sufficient reduction in the public debt had not been successfully provided for, the Government considered that the continuation of policy of moderate loans would prove the best way out of the financial complications. In any event it—the Government—felt itself supported in these most unfavourable circumstances by the confidence of the nation, that faith in the future which was so fair a heritage of our stock…. And the Speech from the Throne left the sinister topic of public economy as soon as possible, to apply itself to less disputatious subjects, such as ecclesiastical, educational, and legal matters. Minister of State von Knobelsdorff declared in the monarch's name the Landtag to be open. And the cheers which accompanied Albrecht when he left the hall sounded somewhat ironical and dubious.

As the weather was still summery, he went straight back to Hollerbrunn, from which necessity alone had driven him to the capital. He had done his part, and the rest was the concern of Herr Krippenreuther and the Landtag. Quarrels began, as has been said, immediately, and about several topics at once: the property tax, the meat tax, and the Civil Service estimates.

For, when the deputies proved adamant against attempts to persuade them to sanction fresh taxes, Doctor Krippenreuther's meditative mind had hit on the idea of converting the income tax which had been usual hitherto into a property tax, which on the basis of 13½ per cent. would produce an increment of about a million. How direly needed, indeed how inadequate such an increment was, was clear from the main budget for the new financial year, which, leaving out of account the imposition of new burdens on the Treasury, concluded with an adverse balance, which was calculated to damp the courage of any economical expert. But when it was realized that practically only the towns would be hit by the property tax, the combined indignation of the urban deputies turned against the assessment of 13½ per cent., and they demanded as compensation at least the abolition of the meat tax, which they called undemocratic and antediluvian. Add to this that the Commission adhered resolutely to the long promised and always postponed improvement of Civil servants' pay—for it could not be denied that the salaries of the Government officials, clergy, and teachers of the Grand Duchy were miserable.

But Doctor Krippenreuther could not make gold—he said in so many words, “I've never learnt to make gold,” and he found himself equally unable to abolish the meat tax and to ameliorate the conditions in the Civil Service. His only resource was to anchor himself to his 13½ per cent., although no one knew better than he that its sanction would not really bring things any nearer their solution. For the position was serious, and despondent spirits painted it in gloomy colours.

The “Almanac of the Grand Ducal Statistical Bureau” contained alarming returns of the harvest for the last year. Agriculture had a succession of bad years to show; storms, hail, droughts, and inordinate rain had been the lot of the peasants; an exceptionally cold and snowless winter had resulted in the seed freezing; and the critics maintained, though with little proof to show for it, that the timber-cutting had already influenced the climate. At any rate figures proved that the total yield of corn had decreased in a most disquieting degree. The straw, besides being deficient in quantity, left much to be wished from the point of view of quality, in the opinion of the compilers of the report.

The figures of the potato harvest fell far below the average of the preceding decade, not to mention that no less than 10 per cent. of the potatoes were diseased. As to artificial feeding-stuffs, these showed for the last two years results both in quality and quantity which, for clover and manure, were as bad as the worst of the years under review, and things were no better with the rapeseed harvest or with the first and second hay crops. The decline in agriculture was baldly shown in the increase of forced sales, whose figures in the year under review had advanced in a striking way. But the failure of crops entailed a falling off in the produce of taxation which would have been regrettable in any country, but in ours could not help having a fatal effect.

As to the forests, nothing had been made out of them. One disaster had followed another; blight and moths had attacked the woods more than once. And it will be remembered that owing to over-cutting the woods had lost seriously in capital value.

The silver-mines? They had for a long time proved barren. The work had been interrupted by convulsions of nature, and as the repairs would have cost large sums, and the results had never showed signs of coming up to expectations, it had been found necessary provisionally to suspend the workings, though this threw a number of labourers out of work and caused distress in whole districts.

Enough has been said to explain how matters stood with the ordinary State revenues in this time of trial. The slowly advancing crisis, the deficit carried forward from one year to another, had become burning owing to the straits of the people and the unfavourableness of the elements. It had begun to cry aloud for remedy, and, when one looked around despairingly for the remedy, or even for means of alleviation, the most purblind could not fail to see the whole hideousness of our financial condition. There could be no thought of voting for new expenditure, the country was naturally incapable of bearing much taxation. It was now exhausted, its tax-paying powers adversely affected, and the critics declared that the sight of insufficiently nourished human beings was becoming more and more common in the country. They attributed this firstly to the shocking taxes on provisions and secondly to the direct taxation which was known to oblige stock-owners to turn all their full-milk into cash. As to the other less respectable though enticingly easy remedy for dearth of money, of which the financial authorities were well aware, namely the raising of a loan, the time was come when an improper and inconsiderate use of this means must begin to bring its own bitter punishment.