(iv.) She instituted additional taxes, i.e., stamp tax, dog tax, fire-arm tax, producing about 8,000,000 roubles. (v.) She levied certain permanent monthly taxes on imports, etc. (vi.) She insisted that sums due to Russian custom authorities from merchants in the occupied territory should be paid to her, otherwise the goods for which these duties were liable would be confiscated. In fine, it was close on a year and a half after the occupation of Warsaw by the Germans that any sort of announcement was made by the Central Empires with regard to the constitution of Poland, and even when that came, as we shall see, the proposed national constitution was nothing more than an impotent conjugation of irreconcilable units who, incapable of legislation, could only quarrel among themselves. Here and there small local governments had been formed, as for instance at Lodz, where Hindenburg, in July, 1916, instituted the following: (i.) A municipal board of ten members, two of whom were Poles, the rest Jews or Germans. (ii.) A municipal council of thirty-six, of whom twelve were Poles, twelve Jews, and twelve Germans. Such a body, it will be agreed, did not do much for local Polish autonomy, since the Jews in Poland were notoriously pro-German. But then Germany was not “out” for doing much for Polish autonomy. Her main object during the first year of her occupation was to mark time and to await the developments of her military and other operations in Russia. She wanted to avoid trouble with the Poles, to avoid any measures that should conceivably weaken her grip and strengthen that of Austria, and, perhaps above all, to avoid anything that should tend to throw the Poles back into sympathy with Russia, as her forcible annexation of the country, or her partitioning it again between herself and Austria would have done. Probably (for Russia at that date was a long way from being beaten) she thought she would be best employed in peaceful penetration, which facilitated business between the two countries.