DEBTS OF GERMANY.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 72, 25 March 1919, Page 9

DEBTS OF GERMANY.

•i '- ■ (To the Editor.) Sir, —Amongst your readers i*. there one whose researches in history- have led him to note the payment of Napoleon's exactions on O-erman towns? In Blackwood's "Musings Without Method" for November last, he says, in reference to indemnities: "We are constantly told it is useless to exact them, because Germany cannot pay them. Was ever a more foolish argument advanced: Of course Germany cannot pay all that will be demanded of her on the nail. But she can pay the interest on her debt, and she can create a sftiking fund. Only a year before this war broke out certain towna in Germany paid the last instalment that was owing of the sums demanded by Napoleon a hundred years ago." During that one hundred years many things happened, amonget them the Franco-German war, which one would have thought would have wiped out Napoleon's exactions. But it appears not. and it would be interesting to know* what towns continued to pay after IS7O, and tbe circumstances of the payment. Perhaps amongst your readers there is one who knows, and. if so, perhaps hewould be kind enough to enlighten the vast number who do not know.—l am, etc J. H. UPTON.