I am fortified in this conclusion by the result of inquiries which I addressed to Dr. Moritz Elsas of Frankfort–on–Main, on whose authority I quote the following figures. The best–known estimate of the German pre–war income is Helfferich’s in his _Deutschlands Volkswohlstand_ 1888–1913. In this volume he put the national income in 1913 at 40–41 milliard gold marks, _plus_ 2½ milliards for net income from nationalized concerns (railways, post office, etc.), that it is say, an aggregate of 43 milliards or 642 marks per head. Starting from the figure of 41 milliards (since the national services no longer produce a profit) and deducting 15 per cent for loss of territory, we have a figure of 34.85 milliards. What multiplier ought we to apply to this in order to arrive at the present income in terms of paper marks? In 1920 commercial employees obtained on the average in terms of marks 4½ times their pre–war income, whilst at that time workmen had secured an increase in their nominal wages of 50 per cent more than this, that is to say, their wages were 6 to 8 times the pre–war figure. According to the Statistischen Reichsamt (_Wirtschaft und Statistik_, Heft 4, Jahrgang 1) commercial employees at the beginning of 1921 earned, males 6⅔ times and females 10 times as much as in 1913.[51] On the basis of the same proportion as in 1920 we arrive at an increase of 10 times in the nominal wages of workmen. The wages index number of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ for August 1921 estimates the wages per hour at 11 times the pre–war level, but, as the number of working hours has fallen from 10 to 8, these figures yield an increase of 8.8 times in the wage actually received. Since the wages of male commercial employees have increased less than this, since business profits in terms of paper marks only reach this figure of increase in exceptional cases, and since the income of the rentier, landlord, and professional classes has increased in a far lower proportion, an estimate of an 8–fold increase in the nominal income of the country as a whole at that date (August 1921) is likely to be an over–estimate rather than an under–estimate. This leads to an aggregate national income, on the basis of the Helfferich pre–war figures, of 278.80 milliard paper marks, and to an income of 4647 marks per head in August 1921. No allowance is made here for the loss by war of men in the prime of life, for the loss of external income previously earned from foreign investment and the mercantile marine, or for the increase of officials. Against these omissions there may be set off the decrease of the army and the increased number of women employees.