REFUGEE PROBLEM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 January 1939, Page 4

REFUGEE PROBLEM

SCHACHT’S FINANCIAL PROPOSALS

REICH TO RETAIN PROPERTY OF EMIGRANTS. AND GET SPECIAL TRADE FACILITIES. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. BERLIN, January 10. M. Rublee is meeting Dr Schacht on January 11. It is reported that Dr Schacht’s plan for a solution of the Jeivish refugee problem is not acceptable, but is a possible basis for discussion. The financial section of the plan proposed that Jewish capitalists abroad should raise a loan of five hundred millions sterling to be used to provide emigrating Jews forced to leave Germany with the equivalent in foreign exchange of marks, removing the obstacle formed by the reluctance of countries to accept' destitute refugees. The loan would be guaranteed by Jewish property remaining in Germany. Interest and sinking fund payments would be assured by additional exports from Germany under special facilities granted by the countries interested in Jewish settlement. “The Times” Berlin correspondent points out that foreign investors would be expected to pay a large lump sum for the release of Jews, allowing the Reich to keep their property and also to expect a return for their money only if Germany was given export facilities, possibly detrimental to the economy of their own countries. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Berlin representative understands that Dr Schacht estimated that the value of German Jewish property, after the deduction of the eighty-three millions fine| at about 125 millions sterling, a total which is less than one-third of Dr Goebells’s November estimate. Meanwhile the Polish-German negotiations on refugees expelled at the end of October have again reached a deadlock on the problem of the amount of property the refugees can take with them. Germany offered 25 per cent, but Poland declined. Meanwhile thousands of refugees are living in primative conditions on the German-Polish border.