FIASCO EXPECTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 304, 24 December 1929, Page 7

FIASCO EXPECTED.

VOTING IN GERMANY

Young Reparations Plan

Referendum.

FEW GO TO THE POLL.

("Times" Cables.)

BERLIN", December 83. The referendum taken yesterday 011 the Young reparation plan is expected to result in a fiasco. The most optimistic estimate was that not more than 8,000,000 out of 42,000,000 electors voted for the rejection of the plan. The majority of the electors were too busily engaged on Sunday in their Christmas shopping to trouble to vote. Later news is that provisional returns from all districts show that about 5,783,000 people voted in favour of the bill condemning the plan and 335,000 against it. The poll represents only 14 per cent of the electorate. The extreme Nationalists claim that a bg,re majority is all that is needed. On the other hand the Government has published the opinion of its legal advisers that the bill wou'd modify the Constitution, for which reason more than 20,000,000 votes would be necessary for it to become effective. The final decision lies with the Reichstag's Electoral Court, to which the organisers of the referendum will probably appeal.