THE WAR INDEMNITY.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 69, 21 March 1919, Page 7

THE WAR INDEMNITY.

(To tbe Editor.!

Sir.—Tlie criticism levelled at Mr. j Hughes for his insistent demand that Germany should pay the full cost of the war is not entirely reasonable. Mr. Hughes docs not speak without information, and certainly not without full consideration. The question to be determined is whether the Germans will be able to pay within a given time the amount necessary to repair the wrongs they have done to the material property of the Allies. They cannot, of course, ever atone adequately for their infamous crime_. Few will venture to deny that 'we ought to exact from the Teuton beasts as much as We possibly can get. Well, the income of Germany before the jwar was £2.000.000.000 per annum. Her | national wealth was officially returned as increasing at the rate of £.">00 ,000,000 I per annum. The mineral asset- were Icomputed by her Herr professors (who (advocated the permanent enslavement lof the Allies) at .-£101.000.000,000. Ger■many has plundered the manufacturing plants and machinery from all Belgium and Northern France. During the war she enslaved 40,000,000 inhabitants of Allied countries, enjoying the fruits ot their compulsory labour. She robbed all Ithe works of art. private and public furniture and movable wealth of every kind in the territory she occupied. Can it be said that " £25.000.000,000—the amount mentioned by Mr. Hughes—is too much to demand from this race of criminals? That sum would not nearly reimburse the Allied nations for their losses. Surely when our courts of justice demand from any common burg'at who is let out on probation, that he shall compensate the people whom be has robbed, at least the application of the same principle to Germany must be admitted to be fair. Mr Hughes is a brilliant and far-seeing statesman, with originality of thought and method, and with the single exception of Mr. Lloyd George is head and shoulders above the ruck of the delegates at the Peace Conference. If the Conference gives due weight to his advice the world in the future will be far safer for democracy than it would be if the professorial idealism of Mr. Wilson be adopted as the basis of the punishment to be inflicted on the Northern wolves.—l am, etc. W. J. NAPIER. A.M.P. Buildings. Queen Street, March 20, 1910.