Foreign News: Taxes by Decree

Chancellor Heinrich Brüning dared to do last week that which no German statesman has dared since the days of “The Iron Chancellor,” Prince von Bismarck.

When Reichstag deputies would not vote the money Bismarck wanted, he got it by writing out a decree which his King (whom he made Kaiser Wilhelm I) hastened to sign. Fortnight ago the new iron chancellor, who won the “Iron Cross” during the War and was hand-picked for his mettle by old Paul von Hindenburg (TIME, April 7). dissolved the Reichstag by presidential decree when it would not vote the money he wanted. Last week came the final Bismarckian move. Herr Brüning placed his rejected Budget Bill before Old Paul in the form of a decree, and the President, like Kaiser Wilhelm I before him, signed.

That Prince von Bismarck wanted money for war, whereas Chancellor Brianing must have it to pay the allies, greatly alters the situation, does not alter the principle that last week the German people were placed under a regime of “taxation without representation.” Today Germany, Spain, Italy and Russia—all the Great Powers of Europe except France and Britain—are under some form of dictatorship. Of the three Great Powers of South America, Argentina and Chile have dictator-presidents, while Brazil is ruled by a coffee oligarchy. In Africa the King of Egypt and the Emperor of Abyssinia are dictators. Turkey, the only strong nation in the Near East, has her dictator Kemal Pasha. Apart from the U. S., Britain, France and Japan (which is a most democratic empire) there is no Great Power in which democracy still exists—but these four democracies are easily the first four Powers.