'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎218r] (434/501)

THE GRAPHIC, FEBRUARY
THE EFI
C5
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5W ,
9 O
HE DEPLORABLE
:es specially taken
17 , 1523
PLIGHT
FOR “THE
WAITING FOR THEIR SUPPLY OF MARKS AT THE BANK
A mixed crowd of British, French and Germans.
duo 1 i 11 vi n, rur^ inn
Officers drawing millions of marks
I f , when in Cologne, and the day is Friday,
you happen to meet a British soldier with
tremendous bulges under his overcoat, don’t
imagine he is suffering from some fearful malfor
mation of the hip. He has
probably just called at Barclay’s
Bank and changed there the
pound sterling into German
paper currency.
Life among the troops in
occupied territory might have
settled down to a dreary hum
drum routine if it had not been
for the fluctuation of the mark.
Buying and selling marks is now
the “ king of indoor sports ”
on the Rhine __There is no sign
of gambling fever, and the game
is still a game, and not a vice.
I called at Barclay’s Bank,
which has taken over the
official business once carried on
by Cox’s. From a small office in
the Hohestrasse this branch has
now grown to a magnificent
building in the centre of the city.
Outside were half a dozen ambu
lance cars, three ordinary motor
cars, a small two-horse phaeton
and a hand-cart waiting to take
awa y millions of marks to pay the
troops. As I arrived two officers
were staggering down the steps
with a large suit-case, which they
could not close, so full was it
of paper marks. When they first
arrived on the Rhine they could
put the pay of their battalion
in their pockets.
I nside the bank there were
four long lines of customers
queued tightly against the
cashier’s counters, with expres
sions on their faces comparable
to the look of those hardy souls
at home—the like of them known
in no other land ■— who will
cheerfully wait twenty - four
hours for a first-night seat
in a theatre. On the left were
more than fifty officers, a score
of soldiers and a sprinkling of
women—probably officers’ wives.
Behind the counters the cashiers
were calmly but swiftly making
calculations in millions with
their mechanical calculators and
pencil and papers. One young
officer, new to the duty of fetch
ing the money, had to borrow an
old sack to remove the pile of
paper. I asked to see the manager, Mr. Meyer,
late of Ruhleben, who controls this unique banking
business carried on in most liquid currencies,
several of which have been known to fluctuate
40,000 marks within the hour. He invited me
to see how the business was done.
Then I accompanied the cashier to the source
of supply, the strong rooms of the Reich Bank.
SACKS OF MARKS FOR BARCLAY’S BANK
Those have arrived from the Reich Bank.
The clerk in charge of the messengers produced
a cheque for a milliard of marks. For this we
received several sacks and bundles of paper
marks fresh from the printing presses.
W e loaded up on an old baker’s hand-cart,
and for all the interest we attracted we
might have been trundling a load of bricks. The
journey was repeated several times until sufficient
paper for the troops had been
obtained. By midday the
stream of customers, military
and civil, speculators, investors
and ordinary business people,
with hampers of small cur
rency, had filled the bank to
overflowing.
I was piloted through the
crowd by a controller, who
operated like an ice-breaker
steaming through thick ice. He
would throw Ins bulk forward
and let it settle on the crowd,
which would divide and leave
a narrow channel. Thus we
reached the exchange-operators’
room, the most vital depart
ment in the bank. The opera
tors were juggling with a score
of telephones and shouting
madly to several European
capitals. It reminded me of
a visit to one of the big
markets in DrapeplS'•"Gardens,
where I thought I had blun d ered»'
into a roomful of yotfflff nien
gone stark, staring mark mad.
Receivers are snatched up,
banged down,instructions hurled
across to assistants in voices
almost loud enough to carry to
their listeners without the help
of telephones.
I s aid there was practically no
gambling with marks. This
is true, for when a Tommy buys
or sells he is on a certainty ! A
friendly corporal explained to
me how it was done. In the
early days, when the pound
stood at a hundred marks, a
soldier could go to the Army
Post Office with his pay and
buy a postal order for sixty
marks, thus right away making
forty marks profit out of this
simple operation. This was
controlled and in some way
curtailed. But last Friday, for
example, a man who had
received 205,000 marks from
the Army Pay Department for
his pound could go to Barclay’s
and buy a pound for about
170,000, and so on ad lib.
This is accounted for by the
fact that the army gets a better
rate than anyone else. This is quite legal. As my
informant said, “ What is good enough for the
gents in Draper’s Gardens is good enough for
those who didn’t always get jam on it.”
AGENTS II
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(OVERSEAS;
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AGENTS
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'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎218r] (434/501)

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'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎218r] (434/501)

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