According to official compilations of Ger man capital investments in foreign countries the amount was between $1,759,000,000 and $1,934,000,000 in 1898, and between $2,007,000, 000 and $2,306,000,000 in 1907-08. In 1909, the investments in the United States and Canada were estimated at $687,000,000, in Central Amer ica, $272,000,000; in the countries of the West Coast of South America, $131,000,000; of the East Coast $362,000,000; in Africa., $332,000, 000; in Yurkey, $81,000,000; in Persia and British India, $19,000,000; in Eastern Asia, $106,000,000; in Southeastern Asia, $106,000, 000; and in Australia and Polynesia, $87,000, 000.
In principle the taxation by the empire is indirect, by the states direct, while the communal taxation is mostly fixed in per cent of and additional to the state taxation. Both in the states and the communes the in come derived from productive enterprise (mostly railways, forests and mines in the case of the states, trolley cars, water, gas, electric power in the case of the communes) form an important item. The development of the inher itance tax and the general introduction of the income tax as the basic duty of the system of direct taxes are the prominent figures of the modern development. The increase in taxation during the last few years before the war was very large, almost injuring the needs of pro duction. It has been estimated that every Ger man has, on the average, to work two months in the year for the empire and the states and the other public bodies. Even before the in
crease in taxation during the last few years the taxation already borne by the largest and most prosperous German corporations in the coal and iron industries amounted from 60 to 75 per cent of the total profits. It is a splendid proof of the economic excellence of the Ger man system of social insurance as introduced by the empire, and of the policy of social wel fare as practised by the states and the com munes, that in spite of these taxes the German industries were, generally speaking, increasingly prosperous.
Bibliography.— Heilfron, Ed., (Gesetz gebung fiber Geld-Bank, and Bi3rsen-wesen' (Berlin 1911) ; Jolles, Leo, (Im Reich des Geldes> (ib. 1915) ; The Reichsbank, 1876 1900) (Government Printing Office, Washing ton, D. C., 1910) ; 'The German Bank Inquiry of 1908' (2 vols., ib. 1909) ; 'Miscellaneous Articles on German Banking' (ib. 1910) •, (Die Reichsbank, 1876-1910' (Jena 1912); Plenge, J., der Diskontpolitik zur Herrschaft fiber den Geldmark' (Berlin 1913) •, Riesser, J., The German Great Banks and their Con centration in Connection with the Economic Development of Germany' (Washington, D. C., 1911) ; • Wiewiorowski, S., (Einfluss der deutschen Banken-konzentration auf Krisen erscheinungen) (Berlin 1912); Wolff, S., Was Griindungsgeschaft im deutschen Bank gewerbe' (Stuttgart 1915).