GERMANY CAN PAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1922, Page 5

GERMANY CAN PAY.

'THE INFLATION DEVICE. Inflation of the eurrancy ad libitum and ad infinitum is the basis of all that ie happening in 'Germany to-day — This is the outstanding statement of an article by the City Editor of The London Times written after a tour through Germany in order to study the economic conditions. The. article agrees in its main conclusions with the statements of the Financial Editor of the London Daily Mail as the result of a similar visit to Germany.

The Times City Editor says: Currency inflation is the primary stimulus of Germany’s industrial activity; it explains why her workpeople find full employment (while 1V 2 .million of our own workpeople have io be maintained by doles provided by the British taxpayer); it is the cause of the lack of discipline among the younger sections of her population and the lowering of efficiency.

ABSENCE OF THRIFT. It is reeponsible for i.'lie impoverishment of her middle classes who ar® dependent upon more or less fixed incomes; for the great influx of foreign-; ers who are able to live in Germany l at a ridiculously low cost; for the food riots which occasionally break out m the chief industrial centres where pro-; fiteerinj' is rampant; for the relative prosperity of the wage-earners and the relative and absolute poverty of the o.d propertied classes; for the grea pio c peritv of a few industrialists and agrarians; the scarcity of P"™- e motor-cars; the paradox of stringency despite the ov ™’ tn ” e '' ° • N ing of the printing press; for tbe ™ pi " ly rising prices of commodities, oi flight from the mark; absence of s - ing; and last but not least, for - many’s default in respect of oblige tions to the Allies. Obviously Germany has not the same productive^power as she possessed before the war, but 1 cannot view that her adverse trade balance renders inflation inevitable, or t. ■ ■ - is incapable of making substantial re P The new Stinnes contract shows tnat Germany can make reparation‘ amounts if the form of Payment is p vided for. The adverse balanc trade is in part due to excessne in - portation, due to the anxiety to marks into imported goods.