Koehler's Budget

When President Paul von Hindenburg maneuvered the German Monarchists into entering and supporting the new "Big Coalition Cabinet" of Chancellor Wilhelm Marx (TIME, Feb. 7), there stepped up to shoulder the weighty Portfolio of Finance a Roman Catholic Centrist then internationally little known, Dr. Heinrich Koehler. Immediately he became famed by uttering early, late and often the most dire and pessimistic warnings that Germany would not for long be able to meet her scheduled payments under the Dawes Plan. Yet when Dr. Koehler presented his first Budget, not even his inveterate pessimism could becloud several cheerful facts:

Respite. Less than one-eighth of the 8,500,000,000 gold marks ($2,014,500,000) total budgeted expenditures will be paid out next year in reparations under the Dawes Plan. In subsequent years the scheduled payments will be much greater; but the next twelve-month will be one of comparative respite for Germany.

Jobs. At this time last year some 2,000,000 workers were jobless; but today this figure has shrunk to 1,300,000.

Defense. Germans may rest easy that their treaty-restricted army of only 100,000 men will be raised to the highest attainable pitch of efficiency through the prudent expenditure, next year, of some 700,000,000 gold marks ($165,900,000) --some 30,000,000 more than last year. Even so this sum is dwarfed by the total of War pensions budgeted: 1,300,000,000 gold marks, or one-third more than the reparations payments.

Taxpayers. Though the German taxpayer will pay about twice what he proportionately paid in taxes just prior to the War, his taxes are even now slightly less than those of Englishmen, who take a rueful pleasure in the boast: "Britons pay the heaviest taxes in the world."

Vote. Although Finance Minister Koehler presented his budget to the Reichstag, with his most funereal compliments and observations, the Deputies passed it 238 to 166--only the Communists, Socialists and a few so-called Economic Unionists dissenting.