AN EXTREME GERMAN VIEW.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 2

AN EXTREME GERMAN VIEW.

— i In the Deutsche Ruiidschau for July, f Werner Kenzmer reviews Mr Keynes' '* book, approving cordially the argument j which would reduce the just indemnity 1 from 138 billions to 30,, the estimate f of present German taxation at 43 per | cent, of the total income, and the re- ' jection of all schemes for foreign eon- f trol as impracticable. ; On Mr Keynes' conclusion that tier- | many can and doubtless would cheer- } fully pay 12(50 million gold marks an-a nually for 30 years, he remarks that the I English writer goes only hall' way- \ that any such payments are impossible. Before the war, the necessary importation of raw materials made an annual balance of trade against Germany of one and- one-fourth billions. The loss of Lorraine, Upper Silesia, etc.. lias made this condition much worse. The foreign colonies, foreign securities, and even German private property in other lands., which enabled her to cover that deficit, are all gone, and she is robbed, even of her merchant fleet. .Still another halt-billion goes annually to support the armies of occupation and the "espionage-commissions." Altogether two billions per year is a conservative estimate tor the present outgo. Against the proposed total of three and onefourth billions. Germany has nothing to offer but the ever-growing flood of paper' money, practically worthless outside her borders. The reviewer concludes: Keynes, also, calls imperiously for the restoration of a normal equilibrium in international trade. To this end it is not enough that the United States cancel the debt oi' the Allies. The requisite next step is, that the German indemnity be completely stricken out, before it is too late. Even that will not clear tliie way. Lloyd George has pointed out at Geneva that from the Adriatic to the Black Sea there is not one undisputed boundary. In truth, those lines, drawn by the bloody dilettantism of the European allies after the war's end. not merely for national, but perhaps even more for economic reasons, are absolutely indefensible. In European industry, of which, before the war. Germany was the strongest support, is to regain its steadfast structure, Germany must first of all be given back its agricultural and industrial sources of supply, which are indispensable to her. The: likcJs true of Austria,. Hungary, and Russia. Keynes does not touch on eeonomic-geo'graphi ■ eal questions at all. Neither does he remark that Germany, having been deprived by the Allies of her foreign territory, her merchant fleet, and the property of her citizens in other lands, has alreadv paid a wa'r indemnity to be valued at 80 to 100 billions. This looting policy has already shown itself to lie harmful from the cosmopolitan point «•!' view. Everything beyond that squeezed out of Germany as financial indemnity —even though it be by the circuitous method of a. gigantic American loan only helps on the further destruction of the economic foundations of the prosperity of the world's commercial nations.