PAYING FOR THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, 26 April 1919, Page 2

PAYING FOR THE WAR.

\ GERMANY'S LIABILITIES. FIiANcK ASKS FOE JUSTICE. i Wider the title, "\\ko shall pay first. France or Germany?" the ".Via!in" prints n striking article on the subject of Indemnity and on the proposed levy of a Jo per cent lax on '•'Supposing that in 1871," says the writer, "when the Germans held France from the Loire to Flanders, Bismarck had said to the German people: ' VYi> have crushed France and imposed cm: her an indemnity of two hundred i.ijiion:; sterling, which is rather more 1 ii;:n the war iias cost us. However, as .-.;• re not absolutely .sure that France ..n pay ill is two hundred millions. I ;> opose to take one-fifth of the property Of every German citizen in order to ::>.-et the deficit in the Budget of tho new German Empire' If Bismarck had made such a proposition, do you iii.- think the German people would have shut him; up as a lunatic or stoned him.?-"

The "Matin" writer goes on to point on! that, although it has not yet been decided whi?.t Germany must pay for having let loopVi wat and run on the world, the French Government have already announced that the best means of paying the cost of the war will be to fake from every Frenchman one-fifth or one-quarter of his property. "The knife is ready," he says, "net to bleed the assassin who has been conquered, but his victim who is the conqueror.'" The proposed new tax on capital, the "Matin" points out, is aimed not only at a quarter of tho fortune of the millionaire, as some people seem to believe, but at a quarter

of the savings old servants and employees ihavc put aside for their old age, at a quarter of the trader's mer-id'.-ndise, at a quarter of the farmer's field, at a quarter of the peasant's furniture.

"Will half or three-quarters of fno German fortune he. taken first? Nobody seems to know. Will they talc; first half or three-quarters cf the waggons of gold ; and diamonds the Kpi*cr took with him into exile? Nobody knows. Will they take half or threequarters of the savings of the people of Pomcrania, Bavaria, cr Hesse, whose sons and brothers burnt Eheims. annihilated AriJeins, sacked Valenciennes, -oillaged Lillet devastated' five French departments?- Nobody knows. Will they take half or three-quarters of the property of the German junkers. of the lands of the boche fanners, of the beer of the boche brewers, of the furniture of the boche peasants? Nobody knows. All we know.is that, to meet this debt due to German'crime, it is proposed to take forthwith onequarter of the fortune of France, and that before even presenting- a bill to the debtor they arc seeking how to despoil the creditor." The "Matin" draws a bitter contrast between the fact that every soldier will receive a demobilisation premium of ten pounds on leaving the army, and a few months later will be called upon to pay the State a quarter of all ho possesses. The "Matin" concludes by characterising the proposed capital tax as "ruin and imbecility."