REPARATIONS TERMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 49, Issue 200, 10 June 1929, Page 6

REPARATIONS TERMS

SACRIFICES BY BRITAIN. GERMANY TO PAY FOR 50 YEARS. (United Press Association —Copyright) PARIS, June 7. The report of the Committee of Experts on Reparations was signed, this evening in the course of a brief ceremony, at the conclusion of which Mr Owen D. Young, United States chairman, congratulated his colleagues. The delegates 7 rapidly exchanged farewells, and are returning to their homes forthwith. The text cf the report consists of 18,000 words, apart from annexes. It is being published on Sunday. In the meantime fresh details are available. It is anticipated that Britain will receive £20,900,000 out of each German average annual payment of approximately £100,000,000. The report will be forwarded to the Reparations Commission for submission to the Governments concerned. If it is adopted Germany will have a specific financial burden to cany for 50 years. T'lre creditor Power's have fixed annual payments from Germany on the Young Plan, which virtually, scraps the Dawes Plan. Theoretically it comes into force on April 1, 1930, but actually it will begm to operate on September 1, 1929. The Experts agree that ail complicated foreign controls imposed on Germany by the Dawes Plan will disappear. Germany, instead, will freely undertake to pay an average annuity of £102,500,000 for a further 27 years, followed by an annuity of £85,000,000 for a further 21 years, covering war debts only. Annuities Will be divided unconditionally, or conditional on the latter being delayable with the approval of a _ committee to he appointed from the directors of the International Bank, the former furnishing the large capital sum to which France attaches importance.

Army of Occupation. ' Germany’s liability for the costs of the Army of Occupation will cease on September 1, the suggested date from which the scheme should operate. This is regarded as meaning the evacuation of the Rhineland on that date.

The most important annexe to the Reparations Report relates to Reparations annuities. Britain obtains a variable annuity comprising first a year-to-year cover for the Balfour Note obligations, which varies according to Britain’s payments to the United States, and secondly, a non-variable amount for the Dominions, which will obtain the full revised Spa percentages. The Paris correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” states that Britain’s share yrill be somewhat under the strict' proportion which was hitherto in force, but there are compensating advantages. The share will no longer be a fixed proportion, but the amount varies year by year according to our debt payments, for which it provides for a year-to-year to cover. Besides this there is a constant amount to meet the claims of the Dominions. Our share in the early years will be on a somewhat higher basis that the present Jjroportion, but in later .years rather over.

International Bank. Reparations in kind will he maintained for 10 years, beginning with £37,500,000, and decreasing to ££5,000,000. This limitation alone is worth a sacrifice from the British viewpoint. There is no concealment in British quarters that sacrifices have been necessary, of which Britain his the largest share. The British Delegation accepted these more readily inasmuch as it felt it could only benefit from a settlement, while failure would be a calamity.

The International Bank will liave a share capital of £20,000.000 subscribed by the central banks of Powers represented on the Experts Committee, of which a quarter will be paid up immediately. The Bank will act as a clearing house for payments of Reparations and deliveries of raw materials, besides safeguarding Germany’s credit. The Bank’s profits will be placed in a common fund to s the benefit mainly of the Governments concerned, but 25* per cent, will be placed in reserve to. assist Germany in paying the last annuities. It is estimated/that France will receive a total of £968,350,000, compared with about £1,600,000,000 . originally claimed by M. Poincare.—Australian Press Association, United Service.

THE AMERICAN VIEW.

MAY AFFECT CREDIT CONCONDITIONS. WASHINGTON, July 8. The signing of the Reparations Report is hailed in administrative circles generally as a potent factor leading to stabilisation throughout Europe, with consequent benefits to the United States, but one official, in sharply dissenting from this view, suggested that the proposed flotation in the United States of ■an issue of German bonds, as provided in the settlement, may react unfavourably on credit conditions here and in non-European countries. This official declared that such an offering would probably cause American investors to lend less money to Latin America and Canada, which for many years had been heavy borrowers in the United States credit market. —Australian Press Association.

MIXED RECEPTION IN GERMANY. “STEP FORWARD POLITICALLY.” BERLIN, June 9. | The Press gives the Reparations Agreement a mixed reception. “Vorwaerts” describes it as a step forward politically, showing that the will to destroy Germany no longer exists. The “Berliner Tageblatt” says its most important aspect is not the evacuation of the Rhineland, that is bound to follow, but the evacuation of German economic life, which for a decade has been occupied by creditors who believed they had an unlimited right to exploit Germany.. The “Vossiche Zeitung” states that there will be a devision of the plan when the Allied countries return to economic reason. It is absurd to think that one nation should pay reparations to others for two generations. Nationalist organs' describe the agreement as fatal to Germany, and state that their party intends to oppose it in the Reichstag.—Australian Press Association.