TOO MUCH MONEY IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 75, 21 December 1929, Page 33

TOO MUCH MONEY IN FRANCE

NOW RICHEST STATE IN EUROPE

The brilliant financial situation of France has suddenly become a topic of absorbing interest here. Something like an admission is made here to-day that France has so much money that she is now confronted with the problem of how to spend it wisely. No other European country, it is pointed out, has ever had to solve so paradoxical a problem. One wellknown French financial writer says today that the French Treasury is now “dangerously opulent.” He estimates as about £200,000,000 the balance the Treasury possesses. The danger of so large a purse, it is pointed out, is that the State may be tempted to squander the money at its disposal. Of this £200,000,000 about £48,000,000 is believed to represent balances abroad. It is urged that this imposing sum should be used to win for Paris a more important position as an interna-

tional money market (a matter referred to in the “Daily News”), or should be repatriated and used for the development of French industry. The French State has become the richest in Europe because of the heavy taxation levied during the past three years. That this heavy taxation has been so easily paid by the French taxpayer is obviously due to the remarkable industrial prosperity of the country. The present “boom” mostly benefits manual workers. As against Great Britain’s outstanding problem of unemployment, France’s chief industrial difficulty arises out of a labour shortage. So acute has this shortage lately become that many categories of employers now announce their readiness to pay reliable workers wages considerably higher than those provided for by agreements concluded with trade unions.