Robert Meyer’s review examines Mayr’s programme for reforming German imperial finances, combining an account of its proposed revenues with selective theoretical approval and reservations about its international implications. Meyer first praises the book’s arrangement: concise proposals precede reprinted explanatory essays, preserving both clarity and the liveliness of Mayr’s often polemical exposition. The review then moves through the fiscal programme, gives particular attention to tobacco taxation, and concludes by distinguishing the plan’s financial principles from questions of practical feasibility.
The programme’s governing aim is to replace habitual peacetime borrowing with durable revenue:
Als die eigentliche Aufgabe der Finanzreform bezeichnet es der Verfasser, mit dem bisher so lange geübten System der Inanspruchnahme des Credits in Friedenszeiten dauernd zu brechen.
English translation: The author designates as the true task of financial reform the permanent breaking with the system, so long practised hitherto, of resorting to credit in times of peace.
Mayr disputes the classification of much expenditure as extraordinary and therefore suitable for credit financing. He calls instead for an additional 200 million marks annually. Because neither abandoning transfers to the constituent states nor increasing their matricular contributions appears practicable, the increase must come from imperial taxation. Fixing both transfers and contributions would also disentangle imperial and state budgets. Meyer thus presents reform as a linked problem of adequate receipts and more stable fiscal relations.
Half the proposed increase would come from replacing the tax on raw tobacco with a manufactured-tobacco tax. Mayr favours tax bands with some differentiation by value, rather than the commission’s proposed invoice tax. Meyer finds the detailed discussion valuable beyond its immediate policy purpose: its treatment of tax shifting and its criticism of tobacco interests’ price forecasts illuminate questions applicable to other taxes. Tobacco bears the principal burden because other imperial taxes offer limited immediate scope; spirits and beer remain potential reserves.
The remaining programme combines increased stock-exchange taxation with taxes on wine, drink sales, sugar, and selected luxury imports. Mayr also welcomes corresponding domestic duties on luxury manufactures and considers a substantial increase in the lottery stamp possible. Meyer’s enumeration shows how the programme assembles several constrained revenue sources rather than relying on a single general tax.
His appraisal nevertheless stops short of endorsing the package as a whole:
Ein abschliessendes Urtheil über den entwickelten Finanzplan wird ein den deutschen Verhältnissen ferner Stehender nur schwer gewinnen können, keinesfalls wäre eine Anzeige der geeignete Ort, ein solches zu entwickeln.
English translation: One standing at a distance from German conditions will only with difficulty be able to form a conclusive judgment on the financial plan developed here; in any case a notice would not be the appropriate place to develop one.
This restraint is especially significant for customs policy. From the standpoint of someone belonging to a state linked to Germany by a customs treaty, Meyer expresses unease at systematically searching the tariff for items still open to increases. A revenue measure’s domestic fiscal usefulness does not settle its acceptability to treaty partners.
Meyer nevertheless endorses the seriousness of Mayr’s opposition to continued borrowing and his candour in demanding substantial new revenue. His strongest conceptual agreement concerns the treatment of military spending:
Auch der wohlbegründeten Ausführung, dass die Mehrerfordernisse der Heeres- und Marineverwaltung nicht ein besonderes Deckungsproblem darstellen, sondern mit den übrigen Reichserfordernissen zusammen das Finanzproblem ausmachen, wird auch vom finanztheoretischen Standpunkt vollständig zuzustimmen sein.
English translation: The well-founded argument that the additional requirements of the army and navy administration do not constitute a special problem of coverage, but together with the other imperial requirements make up the financial problem, is likewise to be fully assented to from the standpoint of financial theory.
Army and navy requirements belong within the general fiscal problem, not within a separate category demanding special financing. The closing observation extends this distinction: Mayr opposes a military tax but would recognize military service among the social-policy grounds for income-tax reductions. The review’s lasting interest lies in this selective judgment—approval of comprehensive budgeting and tax-incidence analysis, coupled with caution about the feasibility and external consequences of particular revenue measures.
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