WAR DEBTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 August 1922, Page 3

WAR DEBTS.

CABLE NEWS.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION

POSSIBILITIES OF CONFERENCE(Received this day at 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, August 9.

The “Daily News” says diplomatic conference is faced by three possibilities. Firstly, a comprehensive settlement; secondly, a deadlock or breakdown; thirdly, a compromise sufficient to cai r y discussions past the date for the next German payment on 16th. of August to a' later new conference. The first is impossible, the third remains possible if experts and Prime Ministers are ready to accept enough of M. Poincnire’s schemes to save the author’s face. This is extremely doubtful. Whether it is desirable, is even more questionable. M. Poincaire s scheme is not reeonstructionable but disintegration al. It concentrates attention on sanctions when all concentration should be on reconstruction. It is a reversion to Millerand’s Spa proposals of July 1920. M. Poincaire’s proposals additional to those cabled yesterday are that taxes leviable in the occupied area be paid direct to the Allies. The cession to th e Allies of German State property instancing forests, mines, the Allies to take a sixty per cent share of dye factories and participate in other industrials.

The “Daily Chronicle” comments that it is reported from a French source that the committee estimated M. Poincaire’s scheme was likely to produce three to four hundred million gold marks, which is small in comparison to Germany’s obligations. British representative opinion is that it would yield, but poorly, compared with the likelihood of ultimately disorganising Germany’s econo’mio life.

GERMAN COMMENT. BERLIN, Aug 9

Comment concerning the speeches at the Conference is directed against M. Poincare. It is universally believed that France does not want reparations, but merely a ruined and impotent Germany. The legend of British military weakness and fear ot French aeroplanes is generally accepted. The “Germania” protests that Germany was always willing to reconstruct the French devastated- regions but French speculators and reparation profiteers st°°d in the way. FRENCH PROPOSALS. 1 Received this day at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, August 9.

A French source states Lloyd George at a. meeting with M. Poincaire and M. Tlieunis agreed to the following • French proposals—Firstly, the reparations Commission to directly collect twenty-six per cent on the sums received by Germany in foreign currency, or on the German exports, which are estimated to-yield 1250 million gold marks; secondly, seizure of German customs receipts estimated at three hundred million gold marks; thirdly, control of State mines in Ruhr and forests on the left bank of the Rhine, but the British Government is strenuously opposing proposal to re-establish a Rhine customs harrier and establish a customs barrier round Ruhr, in connection with which M. Poincaire is unbending. VISCOUNT GREY’S VIEWS. (Received this day at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 9. Viscount Grey, speaking at Oxford, said whether Europe would be restored to prosperity .depended largely on th eresult of the London Conference. There were two things we must do. We must pay the American debt and keep it entirely a separate question from Allied debts, and must use our credit position in Europe in the most generou sway to ensure a settlement. The Balfour note did not keep the questions separate. It conveyed the impression that we adopt an attitude wf fcoq|tingent igenerbsiity. The Government had a chance to do a big thing and it had chosen to do a little thing.

FAILURE POSSIBLE. LONDON, Aug 9. A grave situation lias developed at the conference. There are indications it will terminate to-morrow, owing to the strong line which the French are taking against the policy of the rest of the Allies.