FINANCES. Prussia ha- a highly -cientifie and satisfactory revenue -y-tem. Taxation, though somewhat burdensome. i- very equitably distrib uted. Direct taxes bring in nearly 10 per cent. of the revenue from all sources an! 71 per cent. of the entire tax revenue. The principal direct tax is the progre—ive income tax. Person- deriving less than a fixed minimum income are exempt. Another important -euree of revenue in Prussia is the income obtained from Gcvenunent donsains and industrial enterprises. railways, mines. salt works, mills. etc. The net revenue derived from these source- 650.000.00o marks. The chief item of expenditure in the Pru—ian budget i- the -o-called working expense in connection with Gov ernment enterprises. The next item is the con tribution to the Imperial fund-. which every state is required to make to complete the revenue of the Empire. (`re GERMANY. paragraph on Finance. Next come the interest on the lic debt, which absorbs nearly 10 per cent. of the
ordinary expenditure: public instruction and wor ship. with t per cent.: justice: and finance. The other items of expenditure are all below Ino,000. 00 marks, and the war expenditure is insignifi cant. about 330.000 in 1902. all the war expendi ture being met directly from Imperial fund-. The growth of the Prussian budget in the last quarter of the nineteenth century is shown by the follow ing table (in millions of mark-).
The public debt of Prussia has grown to enor mous proportion-. In 1S(17 it was marks: in 1991, 1,995.000.000: in 1891, 5,205, 000.000: and in 1901, 6,603,000,000. A great part of the debt, however, has been incurred for productive enterprises, such as railways, mines, and domains. have furnished their own means of liquidation. The service of the debt, in cluding interest and amortization charges, amounted to nearly 273.1)00,000 marks in 1901, or about :36'3,000,000.