The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1921. THE ALLIES' LAST. WORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 55, 5 March 1921, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1921. THE ALLIES' LAST. WORD.

— — — - f t For ths cause that lacks assistant*. For the wrong that needs rftittanee. For the future in the dimt*ince, And the good that tec can do. ■

'Not even the bitterest of Mr. Lloyd Je-orfje's many enemies can charge him vith any lack of precision and force . vhen he is trying to produoe a definite . mpression; and ip epite of the"lanjruage . lifliculty" which the German delegates iave raised, we can hardly imagine that hey or the nation thoy represent can herish any further illusions about the eal meaning and purpose of the Allies. t would he hard to put the case against Germany in more telling and effective erms than those that Mr. Lloyd George ias employed. Germany deliberately >lanned, plotted, an,l 'precipitated this var, thereby bringing incalculable misery ti;d untold losses upon the world. Sam-. -hat the Germans are beaten, they dis- ' •hum responsibility for the war; and .'hough they have •pledged themselves to lisrharge certain obligations to the vie- . orious Allies they will not even attempt ; :o tax themselves heavily ■ enough to >rove their good faith. When they are , •onfronted with a definite demand for. specific payments of damages only—for i 3h«re is no question of an indemnity— ' they affect to treat with the Allies on sqaal terms, offer them aibout one quarter of their just claim, -suggest that :he Allies should borrow the money for .hem in the first place, and conclude with in insolent protest which is in effect a .•hallenge to the Allies to do their worst. As Mr. Lloyd George we'll says, the conduct of the German delegation from first to last has been simply "an offence an:l an exasperation" to the Allies, and whatever the outcome of the present crisis may be, it i* at least certain that the Grermans alone will be to blame. It is of course possible—not, indeed, improbable—that when, on Monday, the r.ermans are called upon to present a formal answer to thia ultimatum, they may see fit to change their minds. But if they persist in talcing further riaks, the course that the Allies intend to follow has already been earefaliy mapped out. Several important industrial centres in Rhenish Prussia will be at once occupied by Allied troops, and the frontier Customs duties will be confiscated on 'behalf of the Reparations Commission. At the same time arrangements are to be made to take for the Allies a fraction of t'je selling value of | a-H German commodities 'by -way of export tax in their various markets. In other words, the Allies intend to secure reparation by administering the Customs revenues of Germany to meet their claims; And apparently the occupation of the great industrial districts on the Rhine 'border, and also of some of the chief ports, is to continue till Germany's ddbts, or at least some substantial portion of them, have been faithfully dis-i charged. We have now to see if the threat of this occupation, with jIU ite contingent national and social humiliations, will be enosgh to induce the Germans at l<>ast to make some vigerous llfort to liquidate their liabilities to the Allies. Aβ to the amount which Germany can pay, we have already pons.idere.,l certain aspects of tihis complex question; mid all that we need say now is that the most foolish line of policy the Allies could possibly follow would ibe to take Germany's capacity to settle her debts at her -own valuation. As the Germans at Versailles originally admitted that they could pay £5,000,000,000, the effort* of Mr. J. M. Keynes and his followers to prove that the Germans could not possibly pay more than £-2,000,000,000 were singularly absurd and futile. As Mr. Lloyd George has said, the keynote of Germany's policy since the Armistice has been simply "evasion," and it is the Allies' own fault if they let fehe G-ermang escape now. Aβ to the woeful plaint of pacifists and pro-Germans and internationalist*, that we ought not to '"enslave" the Germans, Mr. Lloyd George has already made the one appropriate retort. Somebody 'has to pay for the war; should .the Germans, who caused the war, work out their liability or should the industrialists of Belgium and France and Britain and Australasia ibe "enslaved" for yeare to coane to pay for the damage that the Germans havej deliberately inflicted .upon us all? Apparently the Allies are satisfied that there is only one rational answer to thU question, and they will act accordingly.