Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/150

 erty tax was unavoidable in the interest of sound economical life; to distribute the necessarily heavy taxes over a number of years would mean that they would be added to the cost of production and thus handicap Czechoslovak products in the world markets.

Another bill introduced by the minister of finance at the same time asked for authority to issue a domestic loan purchaseable only in gold, silver or foreign currency. This loan is to be repaid in four years in kind. In this way the government hoped to lay the foundation for a metallic reserve for its new currency. It was well known that in spite of all the Austrian requisitions during the war the Czechoslovak people had hidden considerable amounts of precious metals in coins and ornaments. To induce the people to bring in their hidden stores of gold and silver the new loan bore four per cent interest and was exempt from all taxes, including property tax.

For weeks before the introduction of these measures Rašín’s plans were constantly talked about and guessed at. But they were prepared secretly, discussed by the financial committee of the National Assembly in strict confidence before their introduction, and within half an hour after their submission to the legislature they were adopted and the frontiers closed. No travelling was permitted during the nine days of stamping, except to government couriers, and no mails were transported between neighboring states and Czechoslovakia. So efficient, was the machinery provided by Rašín for the execution of his measures that the difficult task of substituting of one currency for another and checking up on all personal property within a state of 13 million people was carried out smoothly and practically without a complaint. One reads in the Prague papers that a German village in northern Bohemia refused to produce its money at the county office on the day appointed, but the elders changed their minds before the stamping period elapsed and were granted the privilege of appearing on a later day. And of course there were a few individuals who seemed to have overslept and who kept sending their unstamped Austrian crowns to the ministry of finance after it was all over, in the vain hope that an exception would be made for them. But on the whole the people accepted the startling measures as necessary, and rich and poor, socialists and agrarians and bourgeois, Germans as well as Czechs, praised Rašín for his wise radicalism. Only Vienna raged and protested, and finally followed the Czechoslovak example. The Magyars intended to do the same thing and stamp their money also, as the Jugoslavs had already done. What will happen to the billions of Austrian currency held in Germany and the neutral European states no one can tell. Today none of the states of the former Dual Monarchy will accept unstamped Austro-Hungarian currency.

One month later Rašín came again before the National Assembly for authority to make an external loan of $179,000,000 to buy food, strengthen the gold reserve and purchase abroad raw materials required by Czechoslovak industries. The loan was authorized and Czech financiers are already negotiating in England, and will soon be negotiating in the United States, for the most favorable terms. Loans extended in the past to the Czechoslovak Republic by the United States government as a war measure will no longer be available. But the credit of the new republic is good, for all classes of the people realize that stability and order must be maintained and production increased, if the state is to live.

Recent news indicates that the controversial question of the expropriation of large landed estates has been settled to the satisfaction of all parties. On April 15th the National Assembly adopted unanimously a law by which the state takes over all estates of more than 150 hectares (about 380 acres) of arable land and more than 100 hectares of forest. It is estimated that the total amount of land thus expropriated will be 1,300,000 hectares of arable land and 3.000,000 of forests; 430,000 families can find new homes on this formerly feudal land. No compensation will be paid for land which was owned by members of the former imperial family, but payment will be made for land taken from noblemen and prelates.

Food conditions have greatly improved with the arrival of supplies from America by way of Hamburg. The first boatload reached Prague on April 8th. The Czechoslovak government bought in Saxony barges and tugs to the amount of five million