MAKING GERMANY PAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1921, Page 4

MAKING GERMANY PAY.

According to a recent cable, Britain and France are taking concerted measures to definitely fix the form and amount of the German indemnity and liability for reparations. It is stated that forty-one questions have been framed and submitted to Germany, which go to the root of the financial situation in that country, and that the answers will probably be available for the Allied Conference which is to be held next week. It is interesting to note in connection with this matter that what has been described as .the dearest ‘’scrap of paper” in the world was handed by the German Treasury to the Reparations Commission early in November last. Its nominal value is £2,000,000,000. and is in the nature of a bond signed by nine Ministers and Treasury officials. Two other bonds were presented at the same time by Germany, one being a German Treasury notft for £1,000,000,000 without

interest, payable at the latest by next May, while the other consists of a promise to issue further Treasury bonds to the value of £2,000,000,000 as soon as the Reparations Commission is satisfied that German finance can bear the strain. That France is troubled by the cost of the upkeep of the Rhine armies, particularly of the 14,000 American soldiers, can readily be believed. It is almost inconceivable that the Allies did not insist on this cost being defrayed by Germany month by month. Such an arrangement would probably have acted as a powerful lever in producing a speedy settlement of the Allies’ claims, as well as a strict observance of the conditions of the Armistice and Peace Treaty. Germany has shamefully abused the leniency and forbearance of the Allies, and while there is no desire to cripple the country, justice demands that the claims of the Allies should be met, and the forthcoming conference will only be doing its duty by putting an end to Germany’s deliberate procrastination by the adoption of stern measures to secure a settlement.