Clearly, industrialists are troubled about the progressively "socialist" character of the German economy. At present it is the financial policy which strikes at profits as well as wages which is the subject of their guarded complaint. For the first few weeks of the war the decree reducing wages enabled employers to increase their profits But this was stopped by a further decree compel ing employers to pay over the cliff ence to the Exchequer pending an arrangement by the Price Commissar to bring prices down in proportion to the lowering of wages—and fines ranging from Rin. 1,000 to Rin. 300,000 have been imposed upon shopkeepers and traders for unjustified price increases. Profits are now under firm control. Before the war industrialists were able to make some sort of stand against absolute State control by "self-financing," that is, by financing capital expenditure out of profits. Under war conditions this is ud longer possible, and they are wholly depend-ji, et financially on the State.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.