[D] The following percentages of unemployment during and after the war may be of interest:--
Average Month. 1908- 1914. 1915. 1916. 1917. 1918. 1913. Jan. 3.1 4.7 6.5 2.6 1.7 0.9 Feb. 2.8 3.7 5.1 2.8 1.6 0.8 March 2.3 2.8 3.3 2.2 1.3 0.9 April 2.2 2.8 2.9 2.3 1.0 0.8 May 2.3 2.8 2.9 2.5 1.0 0.8 June 2.3 2.5 2.5 2.5 0.9 0.8 July 2.2 2.9 2.7 2.4 0.8 0.7 Aug. 2.2 22.4 2.6 2.2 0.8 0.7 Sept. 2.1 15.7 2.6 2.1 0.8 0.8 Oct. 2.1 10.9 2.5 2.0 0.7 0.7 Nov. 2.2 8.2 2.5 1.7 0.7 1.8 Dec. 3.2 7.2 2.6 1.6 0.9 5.4
[E] To do justice to the German revolution I annex a schedule of measures passed by the Peoples Commissaries before the Weimar Parliament met and reaction set in. How far these are being at present enforced I do not know.
Unemployment provision--regulations of 13th November and 15th January. The cost is borne one-half by the Reich, one-third by the State and one-sixth by the locality. The rates must be reduced by April, 1919, to a maximum of six marks per day. It can be withdrawn on refusal to work for insufficient reasons.
Employment regulations of 4th and 25th January. Previous employés on demobilisation must be re-employed and persons employed in their absence only discharged under certain conditions.
Legislative regulations of labour. An order of 12th November, 1918, restored to force all sanitary and social regulations and restrictions suspended during the war.
Labour disputes. Settlement regulated by order of 23rd December, 1918, which sets up workmen's committees responsible for questions of wages, etc.
Prohibition of night baking, 23rd November, 1918.
Prevention of venereal diseases, 11th and 17th December. This measure penalises with three years' imprisonment those exposing others to infection even ignorantly and prescribes compulsory medical attendance.
From its present position and at its present pace the Weimar Parliament will never overtake events. I remember once as a boy pointing out to a cavalcade in red coats jogging along a by-lane that the hunt was off in a different direction.
"The hounds, you mean," said an old gentleman severely; "we are the hunt," and they all jogged happily on.
Meantime the dogs of war--of civil war between the constitutional and council movements, between Conservatives and Communists--are still running at a fearful pace and quite out of hand. The workmen will not work unless some real socialisation is introduced, and this is only possible if more steam be brought into the political machine than the parliamentary system can raise. Socialisation and reconstruction have been going back, not forward. The Socialisation Commission and the responsible Minister have both resigned, because Weimar would not give effect to their mildly socialistic recommendations. Yet nothing can save Germany from bankruptcy and Bolshevism but a re-energising and reorganising of the people for peace at least as effective as that they underwent in the war. Nothing can do this but a new ideal and new institutions. And the ideal of direct political power for the workmen and the institution of an industrial councils system is, so, far as I can see, alone capable of drawing out such force as is still left and of driving the country through the slough of war weariness and waste.