NAZI EXTORTION

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1940, Page 7

NAZI EXTORTION

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.

BLEEDING OF FRANCE SEVERE FINES 1MP0SED CHARGE FOR OCCUPATION

Rec. 9.20 p.m. Londbn, Sept. 20. The Germans, says the Daily Express correspondent on the French-Spanish frontier, have col.lected more than £1,000,000 in fines imposed on impoverished municipalities in western France for attempts to impede the German army. Brest has paid £ 100,000, Bordeaux £90,000 and Paris nearly £200,000. The French Journel Official of September 14 publishes a law authorising the opening of a special account for the maintenance cost of the German army of occupation. Gcrmany's Terms. The German Government had fixed this figure at 20,000,000 reichsmarks per day. This is the figure which, under the terms of the armistice, France has to pay, irrespective of any demands by Italy or of what reparations Herr Hitler may consider imposing at a peace treaty. Thus Germany is asking 7,300,000,000 reichsmarks a year from France. In this connection it is recalled in a statement issued by the Foreign Office that under the "Paris decisions" of January, 1921, reparations were fixed at 2,000,000,000 reichsmarks. Actually the total ever paid by Germany amounted to 17.000,000,000 reichsmarks. While the sums now demanded by Germany and those she was asked to pay in reparations in 1919 cannot very fruitfully be compared because of the change in the real value of the mark to-day and that of 1919, it is yet clear that. leaving requisitioning and payments in kind out of the question, it can be reckoned that France, a territory with about onethirtieth the paying power of 1919 Germany, has to pay a sum three times the maximum annuity ever fixed under the Dawes plan.