JUGGLER'S TRICK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 9

JUGGLER'S TRICK

GERMANS ON REPARATIONS FORMULA REJECTION DEMANDED (A "Stration and N.Z. Pros Association J PARIS, Saturday. A virtual deadlock has arisen in connection with the reparation conference. The Germans are prepared to reconsider their reservations, if the Allies will return to Mr. Owen Young's basis of £ 102.500,000. whereas the Allies assert that their demands represent the irreducible minimum. The Allied delegates point out that the rescaling of the payments, which the Germans now call ‘’juggling.” is really devised to facilitate Germany s task. It is believed that Mr. Owen Young is disposed to side with the Germans in insisting that Belgium’s claim to £12,500,000 as compensation for the valueless German war-time currency should not be tacked on to the bill, but should be negotiated for separately and diplomatically. Some of the oldest observers are inclined to think that the German resistance will wilt in the face of the Allies' firmness, especially in view of all that a settlement would mean to Germany in the direction of stability in finance and the evacuation of the Rhineland. A message from Berlin says the term unanimously applied by the newspapers and in official circles to the new reparation formula is “A juggler's trick,” instant rejection of which is demanded. The storm centres round the antedating schedule, by which the ordinary Dawes Plan payment and the first. Young Plan payment would be payable almost simultaneously. “It is asking Germany to pay £90,000,000 for nothing,'* say the newspapers. The Radical Press suggests that an ultimatum should be sent, saying the. conference must accept Germany's offer, but it admits that the conference has power to determine Germany's fate for generations. Nevertheless, dispassionate commentators decline to admit that a breakdown of the conference is immin- | ent. Dr. Vogler, while en route i* j Berlin, admitted that they must welcome the American efforts at a com* I promise, which favoured Germany.