WHERE GERMANY’S MONEY GOES.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 July 1923, Page 4

WHERE GERMANY’S MONEY GOES.

(By Christopher Hart). HAMBURG, June 7

Since the war Germany lms stood, hat in hand, a beggar by the international wayside. This mendicancy is deliberate and is a clever form of postwar propaganda. If it contributes towards getting a few hundred millions knocked off Germany's debt, the game, despite the loss of dignity entailed, will have been well worth the candle. The curious thing is that during these years of histrionic poverty the Reich (and to an even greater extent the individual Federal States) has been lavishly spending immense minis of money on all sorts of reproductive public works and in the extension and improvement, of industrial apparatus - building big shipping canals, excavating new courses lor rivers, installing power stations throughout the chief industrial regions, electrifying whole provinces, constructing inland harbours, and building now residential quarters in great cities. Who. for instance, that knew the Deutsche Worke at Spamlau, lngolstadt, Kiel, and elsewhere in their more modest dimensions of 1911 would recognise them now, with their forest of blast furnaces and acres and acres of hig new brick factories All those arc, no doubt, admirable works in their way, hut they involve an expenditure which none of the countries to which Germany owes money would fee* justified in incurring.

The latest example of this strange post-war finance is to he seen in Prussia’s resolution to reconstruct, extend, and modernise all hi r hig harbours on the North Sea and RaUir. beginning with F.mden in the west ami ending with Pillau and Koiiigsborg in the east. .Miles of now quays and docks are to 1-e built and fitted with al the necessary apparatus of cranes, .-beds, and storehouses.

The work at some of the ports has already lies'll started. The plans for the new harbours at F.mden, the port nearest to the Dutch frontier, are on a scale which, it i- • aieulated, will enable the part to vie with Rotterdam. Vast, sums have been spent, too, on the naval ports of Rustringen and Wilhelmshai eii. In the case of Rustnngcii, which was formerly a submarine base ~r first-rate importance, tile Prussian Government only decided to find the money after having in vain tried to get an American company to finance the alleged conversion of the port foi commercial purposes. Geestemunde, at the mouth of the We-er, is being provided with brandnew substantial docks for its enormous thdilng-tloe;. Bremen and Bremerhaven are being equipped with new quays in an attempt to rival Hamburg, ami the big new Haiisa (.’anal is probably to lie started in a few months’ time. !.check, too, is building new quays and canals and modernising its

railway system in anticipation of a I’ro-di lease of maritime prosperity. Farther east. Stettin is hard at work building a now system of “free har-

bours" ill expei intion of the coining biaim in iis trade with Rll--ia and Scandinavia.

'dost magnificent of all is 1 hi- schmic contemplated by Prussia for the build

ing of a big new Continental harbour at the mouth of (lie Kibe, where the great marshy island of AVilhelinsburg—a sort of German Sbejjpey—lies nnoh.trc.l midstream, off Hamburg, in tantalising proximity to the Hanseatic town. The island has long been coveted by Hamburg for purposes of harbour extension and as town space for the industrial population working at the factories and shipbuilding yards on tinnumerous islands in that part of the Kike. These thousands of workmen Muw have in he -hipped hy lighters or to go by the tunnel under the river ■ lei i, . i • '■cl- '■ ; • Put me IVi.-sia.. Mute , .1.1.. blUc... ailercation with the little Republic, has determined to keep this precious island lor itseb. and ha- voted ihc milliardnecessary to develop it. In drain, and to drive ship canal- through ii. and. by nionii' of a system of pile foundations, io convert it into a .noi thci n Venice. This new i.-laml liu rliou r. linked up with the Prussian port of ITarburg. Will by ils rivalry. I’nis-i.i liiq.es, ere long fiighlcn the rich little recalcitrant Republic oi Hamburg into Idling ii -ell he as -imilat e-.l by Pi u: - . Pru-sia tiaoh -i,. oh- Die I Inn-eat i<Republics, such a- Hamburg and llremr 11, as mediaeval nuaclirouisiu.-. and e- del ct-mined to unliomilise i lie e-l.iiary ol the Kibe, Hamburg, ami all, claiming Dial as tin- chief emlel of Central he.l'opeiin commerce, iln- prill should politically as well as geographically belong f.o Ihc German Slate ns a uhilTe. Once the indemnity has been fixed am| Germane can with ,-aleii throw off •he garb of poverty, Die world will he stagin red to discover bow rich and eflietent a competitor she ha- become in there years of her eclipse.