GERMAN OBLIGATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 June 1921, Page 5

GERMAN OBLIGATIONS.

AAVARIA HOLDS UP DISARMAMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Assn—Copyright. Berlin, May 31. Although the Central Government has furnished Herr Nollett with the disbanding list, the final agreement with Bavaria is apparently still outstanding, although an agreement is anticipated.

FINANCING THE REPARATIONS. Berlin, May 31. The Bavarian disarmament question has been settled and a complete list of the organisations disbanded is being sent by Herr Nollett. Among the schemes for financing reparations the Cabinet is considering mortgaging one-fifth of Germany’s capital and the establishment of Government monopolies in coal, sugar, saccharine and spirits.

The reparations demanded by the Paris Conference in January totalled £1,500.000,000, spread of 42 years beginning at £100.000,000 a year for two years, rising in the next nine years to ’£300,000,000 a year at which it would , remain for 31 years. Germany’s maximum payment of £300,000,000 a year under the scheme would not be reached for 11 years. The taxpayers of Great Britain were called upon by the budget to pay in one year in taxation £1,035.000.000, more than ten times Germany’s initial payment, and more than three times the maximum annual payment. Before the war the taxpayers of Great Britain escaped with a charge of £164.000,000. As a result of the war their burden, compared with that maximum previous charge, was increased for the current year by £871.000.000. They had to pay in customs and excise £3*48,000,000, and in income tax £385,000,000, each considerably above the German annual payment. And added to the British income tax was £320,000,000 from excise profits tax, while there was nearly another £100,000,000 from death duties, Put it another way. Before the war the defences of Great Britain cost (in 1914) £80,00(1,000. For the current year, the cost is £614,000.000. not counting the supplementary estimates. That is more than double the maximum German payment in one year. And the heavy taxation in Great Britain, now more than £23 for the year, on every man, woman end child in the three kingdoms, must be continued. For the ‘national indebtedness rose owing to the war from £650,000,000 to £7,835,000,Mb. and the British people are paying the taxation stated to meet the interest bill on that and make a beginning at paying it off. Taking off that portion of the debt which is recoverable from the Allies and the Dominions, there remains a debt the people of Great Britain have to provide for and eventuilly pay off themselves of more than £0,000,000.060. k It is not necessary to go into the Hundreds of millions annual revenue, or thousands of millions ultimate payments which each of the other greater lilies have had imposed upon them by the war to get a true view of the lemand which the Allies have made apon Germany, in these annual cash payments, to relieve them of some of that burden which she has forced upon them.