FRANCE & REPARATIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1923, Page 3

FRANCE & REPARATIONS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. g* FRANCE PAYING THE PLUCK. r (Received this day at 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, February 10. The “Daily Chronicle’s’’' Dusseldorf correspondent states if the French had not occupied Ruhr, they would have received over two million tons of coal in the last month. As it is I hey have collected only seventy thousand tons at a cost of thirty live million francs, involving also the employment ol an army of fifty thousand men. France Is thus paying the preposterous price ol seven pounds a ton. Tlie -Economists completely failed in a task which is now left to the military who find the situation practically hopeless. The railways are paralysed, rivers and canals are idle. Small groups of French raiders are now invading the streets of Essen seizing all the coal they come across, whether it he a waggon load going to a factory, of a small handful a minor is taking home, .MORE MINERS FOR RUHR. (Received this dav at 9.30 a. i.) AMSTERDAM, Feh. 10 Eight hundred more Polish workmen .are going to Ruhr at a daily wage of marks. Polish engine drivers earn 18,000 marks hourly. FRANCE AND GERMANY. (Received this dav at 10 a.m.) PARIS, Feh. 10 The Germans ceased work on the railways throughout the French and i* Belgian occupied zones. French troops continue to pour into j Dusseldorf. Orders have been issued | to provide billets for 10,000. I The Germans declare that as a con- | sequence of the cessation ol traffic, j four million people will shortly he | foodless.

FRANCE AND GERMANY. (Received this ilnv at 10 a.m.) PARTS,* February 11. Twelve German I’olicenien were arrested for refusing to salute French r.ffieers in the Ruhr. Two French soldiers went to Bochum despite orders to the contrary. They were molested and one slightly wounded by a knife thrust. Tlie Inter-Allied High Commission suspended a number of newspapers for periods varying from a fortnight to three months for publishing articles fomenting resistance to the Allied orders. A message from Essen states the French informed the Germans that another division of French troops will shortly arrive in the district. ROME, February 10. Mussolini speaking in the Chamber said Italy had not suffered by the Ruhr crisis, but continued to receive tTie nornull quantity of coni—l34 thousand '"'tons between loth January and Bth. February.