Without some measure of socialisation of industry, without some measure of political representation through Councils, the unemployed will not return to work and the employed will only work in fitful intervals between strikes.
Between the November revolution and the end of February the coalminers alone forfeited 23 million marks of wages in more or less meaningless strikes; and this was before the great strikes of the spring, which had an obvious political purpose. This is three times the loss incurred in the last pre-war strike of 1912. The decrease in production rose from a quarter-million tons in December to a million in February, and this was little compared with the loss that followed, estimated at no less than ten million tons.
During the first six months of 1919 there were always at least a million and a half workmen drawing an unemployment pay of about two-thirds of their average wage.[D] Add to this outlay that of the force raised to prevent the workmen from realising their revolution--the seven hundred thousand Frei-Corps, engaged at such a high pay that this Prussian volunteer force of to-day is budgeted for at the same total as the vast German armies that dominated Europe before the war. It is curious that Germany should now be paying the same amount to terrorise a few working quarters that it paid five years ago to terrorise the world. And the second attempt is as hopeless as the first, for the revolution will not be denied. Even the bureaucratic Social-Democrats of the present Government recognise this and try to placate it with words.
"Socialisation has come," proclaim the Government posters all over Berlin, and when I was in Berlin I thought I'd see if I could find it. First, I went to the special department responsible, where in a commandeered hotel I was introduced by a charming lady typist to an equally charming temporary official. He was an enthusiastic alpinist, and asked affectionately after my brother and other English climbers; and, finally, with the help of the typist we unearthed some pamphlets and propaganda leaflets. It was quite a shock on leaving to find oneself in the Wilhelmstrasse, not in Whitehall. Then I tried Westminster--I mean Weimar--where I found two Government Bills being shoved through in a great hurry, because the Socialist supporters of the Government had, like me, been investigating what was behind the posters and pamphlets, and had found only brick walls and bureaucrats.