During the first six months of 1919 there were always at least a million and a half workmen drawing an unemployment pay of about two-thirds of their average wage.[D] Add to this outlay that of the force raised to prevent the workmen from realising their revolution--the seven hundred thousand Frei-Corps, engaged at such a high pay that this Prussian volunteer force of to-day is budgeted for at the same total as the vast German armies that dominated Europe before the war. It is curious that Germany should now be paying the same amount to terrorise a few working quarters that it paid five years ago to terrorise the world. And the second attempt is as hopeless as the first, for the revolution will not be denied. Even the bureaucratic Social-Democrats of the present Government recognise this and try to placate it with words. "Socialisation has come," proclaim the Government posters all over Berlin, and when I was in Berlin I thought I'd see if I could find it. First, I went to the special department responsible, where in a commandeered hotel I was introduced by a charming lady typist to an equally charming temporary official. He was an enthusiastic alpinist, and asked affectionately after my brother and other English climbers; and, finally, with the help of the typist we unearthed some pamphlets and propaganda leaflets. It was quite a shock on leaving to find oneself in the Wilhelmstrasse, not in Whitehall. Then I tried Westminster--I mean Weimar--where I found two Government Bills being shoved through in a great hurry, because the Socialist supporters of the Government had, like me, been investigating what was behind the posters and pamphlets, and had found only brick walls and bureaucrats. And to what does it all amount? Practically nothing, except as regards the coal industry, and so far rather less than nothing there. But the course of events is instructive and particularly interesting for us. The German coal industry, even more than ours, has in the last quarter-century become a monopoly under control of great capitalist combines. Their power is not affected either by the State-owned Prussian mines or by any possibility of new coalfields, as these are either held in reserve by the combines or are too unremunerative to compete. Already before the war this monopoly had been recognised by all parties as not in the public interest; but "nationalisation" in the sense of State exploitation was prejudiced by the poor results given by the State-owned properties of the Saar fields. This inferiority was due not to inferior industry on the part of the workmen but to inferior initiative and independence in the management. What effect over-papered, under-paid officialdom can have on the productiveness of a coalfield is shown in the following annual percentages of total production: