LAW EVADED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 164, 4 March 1932, Page 7

LAW EVADED

fortunes. abroad GERMAN FIRMS CLEVfeRLY DISGUISING THEIR PROFITS. THE "NO MONEY" CRY, . "Kein Geld!" ("No money!")7This Is the lamentation one hears wherever one gd'es ift Germany (writes Rothay Reynolds, in the Daily Mail). 'We poor Germans have no moriey. We have been bled white by the cfuel Allies. We cannot pay another peiiny in reparations. We do not see how we can even pay back our private debts to foreigners. We simply do not knowi how to make both ends meet." One asks oneself what h^s becomp of the money from pbroad knd of the money which has beeh earned abrdkd by the sale of German goods. Geiimany has reeeived £500,000,000 ahoVe : and. beyond the money which she.. hks paid out again in reparations. HyeAv month there i§ a handsome Sum op the fight Side of Germany's balancesheet of foreign trade-. In October ifc amounted to nesrly £20,000,000. A great deal of the money reeeived by Germany has, as everybody knows, beeh put into briekS and mbrtal'. I was recently in a towh where people wefe ^aying^ that they were at their last gasj). '.All the Same they had built theihselves a. splendid new railway station and a fine house for storihg the towh hfchiVes, attd they had hehrly finished a maghificent technical college. The chief hotel had added an immehse new wifig fitted With every mb'dern iukhry. Mohey Out bf Cohntry. But that there is little money about will be clear to anybody who cdmeS to Germany to-day^ and compares it with .th,e, Germnny of a couple of years ; ago. A great deal is being hoarded or has been S'eltt out of the country for Safety. The temporary closing of bapks last July, thte failure of a Series of! small banks, and revelations of coinmercial dishonesty have' made thousands of Germans feel that it .is Unsafe to trust their money to bankers or to invest it in pommercial undertakings. . . . ( . tt has been 'estimated that the hoardings of people of small means at the present time must amOUnt to SOihe £4O,"0dD,O0O. ' Thousands of rich people hhve pldced their ihohey in foreign banks or investe'd it in foreign securities. The simple plan.of depositing money in Dutch and Swiss banks, which so many adopted, is now forbidden by law, but before the prohibition iminense sums of German money were got across the frontiers. Sometimes the general fcUbli'c has a glihipse bf these proceedings. The failure of a Hutch bank brought to light the fact that a number of Germany's favourite stage and filtti, staf S had ehti'USted their fortunes to it. They hiay have thought that their money was safe in the strong rooms of the bank; but banks use money, and this baiik had lent the m°ney deposited by Germans to jothef Germans, and l'ost it. Law Evaklfed That is what numbers of Swiss and Dutch banks have been doing, and that is why Switzerland can claim £140,000,000 of the £600>000j000 Which ■ Germany's creditors cannot get out of Germany. Holland's claim is about the same as Switzeriahdh. Germans are bound under pain of 1 imprisohment to reveal what sums they have deposited abrd'ad. Numbers have obeyed the recexit order. Others, I am told, have gone across the frontier and told their fbreign bahk'ers not to commuhicate with them, and thus give the elfie tb the whefeahouts of their money. . The law can be got round, ahd there is' another plan for keeping' money ih ; safety abroad. Aecording to Dr» - ypgel a! writer on economic puestions, great German industrial concerns are sending goods to dauglitef ConCerhS abroad, .which keep not only the pfofit, hut a large part bf the cost price. The;firm in Germany is careful not tq take'back more than is. absoluteiy . necessary to keep afloat. Thus there are daughter firms abroad With plenty of money, while the pafen't firm in Germany has so little that the authorities are forced to allow it to poStpone the payment of tdxes. , Inp moment of difiiculty a daughter firm "abroad may . come to the aid of the parent concern and lend money. There are loans of this sOft included in that £6OO,OOO,O00 of shbft-tiefm fof.eign credits, Which Germany is fifiable to pay back'.' . These are thin'gs which the ordinary German does not know when he says dolefully: "Wir hhbeli kein Geld" ("We have no money").