ECHO OF THE WAR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5457, 5 August 1929, Page 2

ECHO OF THE WAR.

BOMBARDMENT OF PAPEETE. COMPENSATION WANTED. When the German cruisers Sharnhorst and Gneisnau bombarded Papeete, in Tahiti, during November, 1914, the gunfire destroyed the storehouses and goods of A. B. Donald, Ltd., general merchants and Island traders, with headquarters in Auckland. When the New Zealand list of claims against Germany was finalised after the war the sum of £16,375 was passed as valid in respect of the claim of A. B. Donald, Ltd., although, in a petition presented to the House of Representatives last week' the firm stated that the real loss suffered by it was approximately £50,000. The sum of £3977 was paid to the petitioners in 1923, and a further sum of £834 in 1926, the explanation being given by the Secretary of the Treasury that it had been decided that only 30 per cent, of the assessed value of claims was to be paid. Thus the firm received £4Bll out of the sum of £16,375 earlier passed as valid. In view of the fact that the New Zealand Government was understood to have received over £1,250,000 in reparation payments from Germany, the petitioners submitted that the sum of £11,563, representing the balance of the claim, should be paid to them.