GERMAN WAR FINANCE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2954, 18 December 1916, Page 7

GERMAN WAR FINANCE

TOTTERING EDIFICE OF P^PER. The Germans have recently posted a. notice in Brussels that the administrators of seven French banks in Belgium , have received an order to call upon, clients of French or British nationality, who have deposits in those, banks to meet any debits which their accounts ' may show. The order is described by. the Germans 'as „"a reprisal for Great Britain's attitude towards-branches of German banks in England," but that is too clumsy an excuse to deceive any--body. The:' plain fact of the matter is that Germany is badly in need ofmoney, and will lay. hands upcu all that she can find. The gold of the Belgian banks has'already been seized, under a specious pretext, and even the ladies of the German Court have been. f encouraged to send their trinkets to the melting-pot, as a: means of supporting the war loan.

We in this country, says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian," have nob been much .concerned about the latest) War' Loan, but we may note in passing that tlie amount' nominally receivcd, £529,500,000, is £70,000,000 less than was said to have been raised in September, 1915, and that so little of it is new money that there will not ba more than enough to covor the shortdated loans which are fast falling in. Tho issue of bills will consequently have to go on the same as before, and the mountain of paper which has been built up will grow higher still. It ig quite likely that this paper will. holdgood within the Empire as long as the war lasts, but there cannot fail to b© trouble, after that. . With, as.'is possible, a- Smaller territory to impose taxes upon, and the country barren alike of raw materials and-of manufactured goods, the financial outlook must cause anxiety to all who stop to think, apart entirely from the liability to repair- damage, and perha.ps to pay othor indemnities, . which may be part of tlie peace terms'.