64 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



*' It cannot be said tliat the municipality is troubled here with an 

 ' Unemployed ' question on a large scale." 



These few extracts sufficiently emphasise the startling fact 

 that poverty, as we know it in this country, is practically 

 unknown in the German Empire. 



Another phase of the question whicli this very practical and 

 intensely interesting Report invests with remarkable significance 

 — the prosperity of the German working classes, as evidenced 

 by the State Savings Banks — is dealt with in an extract from 

 the Eeport, showing what the German work-people have been 

 able to do towards making provision for the future — 



Enormous Savings of German Work-people 



" The statistics of the Prussian Savings Banks, just published, 

 bear out all that we have been able to notice concerning the 

 improvement in the condition of the working classes. The amount 

 of deposits almost doubled between 1894 and 1004. In 1894 they 

 amounted to 4,000.67 milHons of marks (£196,111,275), in 1905, to 

 7,761.93 millions (£380,485,300). The total amount in the whole 

 of the German Empire of the deposits lying in the savings banks, is 

 said to be about £598,000,000." 



Similar statistics for the United Kingdom provide the 

 following figures : — 



1894 1904 



Post Office Savings Banks*. . . £89,266,006 £148,339,354 



Trustee Savings Bank .... 43,474,904 52,280,861 



£132,740,910 £200,620,215 



These figures show that for every head of the population in 

 Germany there is a sum of £10 12,s'. 2d. in the savings banks 

 while for the United Kingdom there is but £4 15s. 7(^., or less 

 than one- half. 



While in Germany also the deposits of the working-classes 

 had about doubled in the ten years endiny 1904, tlicij had only 

 increased in tJiis country hy fifty-one jper cent, in the same 'period. 



In this commercial world we generally measure a man's 

 prosperity by his bank balance, and if we apply this practical 

 standard to the working-classes of Great Britain and Germany, 

 we shall find that our own people suffer consideraldy by the 

 contrast. It supplies a scathing condemnation of the economic 

 and fiscal system, for it proves its utter unsuitability to the 

 present needs of the country, while it serves no purpose but to 



* Savings Banks only have been taken in both countries. 



