Editorial Note Accompanying the Article "The Financial Project"

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This editorial note was published in parentheses at the end of the article “The Financial Project of the Left” in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. It gave the following information:

“Berlin Sept, 6. The deputies Waldeck, Zenker, Anwandter, Krackrdgge, Reuter, d'Ester, Stein, Elsner, Otto, Behrends, Jacoby, Schultz and others on the Left have placed the following financial plan before the National Assembly:

“The Ministry is empowered to issue paper money to the sum of — million talers at 3 1/3 per cent interest and to be redeemed in twenty consecutive years against an annual sum of — million talers.

“This paper money will bear the name ‘Prussian interest-bearing notes’.”

The author then lists the terms of issue and circulation of the above-mentioned “interest-bearing notes” and quotes the opinion of the Left-wing deputies on the advantages of their financial project. The following consideration is given particular mention:

“The above plan will provide the Government with the means it needs to meet the requirements of the state and save it from resorting either to the hated measure of a compulsory loan or the expensive one of a loan from individual bankers....

“By issuing smaller denominations the interest-bearing notes plan will satisfy the pressing need for a freer circulation of capital, which does not occur in the case of a loan ... make it possible to exchange government bonds, which are sluggish in circulation and exposed to big fluctuations in exchange, for interest-bearing notes; it will also give the private individual and every worker the chance to invest his savings at interest without losing his disposal of them and free him from the cumbersome savings-banks and from the intermediary of bankers with their usual deductions for commission. “The interest-bearing notes plan will entice out of its hiding-place and bring into circulation the ready cash at present lying unproductively in the hands of timid capitalists and as a necessary consequence promote the flow of ready cash back to the state banks, while at the same time impeding the export abroad of coined metal. This can only be to the benefit of the country....

“The same security that in any case would have to be put up by the Government for any loan will form the security for the Prussian interest-bearing notes, but this plan spares the Government the humiliation of having to haggle with foreign bankers over the amount to be gained by the latter at the expense of Prussia; the plan also gives the Government a favourable opportunity to show the world that Prussia possesses sufficient means within itself to pay for its requirements, thereby reinforcing the confidence of the Prussian people in their own strength and emancipating them from the arbitrary power of foreign usurers.”

We find it hard to understand that deputies on the Left submit financial plans for the procurement of the necessary funds to a Ministry that they intend to overthrow. The principal and in Herr Hansemann’s case perhaps the only means of overthrowing a Ministry is precisely the refusal of funds. If at least some reforms had been included in the financial plan — but no, its aim is to spare the Government the hated measure of a compulsory loan. But what could be better for the opposition than the Ministry making itself hated?