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A REVISION OF THE TREATY

CHAP.

of the Frankfurter Zeitung for August 1921 estimatesthe wages per hour at 11 times the pre-war level, but,as the number of working hours has fallen from 10to 8, these figures yield an increase of 8-8 times inthe wage actually received. Since the wages ofmale commercial employes have increased less thanthis, since business profits in terms of paper marksonly reach this figure of increase in exceptional cases,and since the income of the rentier, landlord, andprofessional classes has increased in a far lowerproportion, an estimate of an 8-fold increase in thenominal income of the country as a whole at that date(August 1921) is likely to be an over-estimate ratherthan an under-estimate. This leads to an aggregatenational income, on the basis of the Helfferich pre-warfigures, of 278-80 milliard paper marks, and to anincome of 4647 marks per head in August 1921.

No allowance is made here for the loss by war ofmen in the prime of life, for the loss of externalincome previously earned from foreign investmentand the mercantile marine, or for the increase ofofficials. Against these omissions there may be setoff the decrease of the army and the increased numberof women employes.

The extreme instability of economic conditionsmakes it almost impossible to conduct a directstatistical inquiry into this problem at the presenttime. In such circumstances the general method ofDr. Elsas seems to me to be the best available. His