A popular referendum has just been proposed by the Luther administration of Germany. The question to be decided is whether to restore to the late nobility their expropriated property, confiscated at the close of the war.

When the numerous princes, dukes, and counts fied the empire at the time of the revolution, there was no rancor between them and the people. It is only natural, therefore, that the sentiments of a large part of the nation today oppose the confiscation of this royal property and favor its restoration.

But Germany of today is a poverty stricken nation trying to pay off the biggest indemnity of history. The former royal property includes besides castles land, and works of art, a long list of incomes, pensions, stocks and bonds, indemnities,--all worth about two billion gold marks. Do the already overtaxed people wish to pay back from the government treasury an amount three times as great as the Dawes loan? If in their present needy condition they are willing to do this, they show a loyalty to rank and property strangely incongruous in a socialist republic. Capitalists who dread Socialism will then sigh with relief to find their worst bugbear so completely discounted in Germany. And political students who question the strength of Republican sentiment in Germany will have their doubts settled by the greatest popular referendum since Napoleon III staged his coup d'etat in 1852.