WHERE THE MONEY GOES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 27, 1 February 1923, Page 7

WHERE THE MONEY GOES

GERMANY AND REPARATION,

I hj,ve recently returned from a tour of industrial Germany with an itching to ask some practical questions of a nature which our politicians, professors, and other experts seem strangely unwilling to answer or ■ even consider, writes Herbert Kendrick in the '•' Daily Mail."

Germany, I understand, owes us and the other Allies a pretty sum of money —whether the original figure, fixed al> £11,300,000,000 in 1921 or the subsequently reduced sum of £6,600,000,000 makes no matter. The point is Germany has made no effort, or practically none, to discharge this huge indebtedness, but has used every possible device to escape paying. ■ Now, m business life, when a trader does not pay his bills some littlo grace is allowed if he is a " going concern," but as time rolls on and the default continues, and the debtor is seen ■to be making an astonishing " splash " in private life, creditors pall a halt and put iri an official receiver in bankruptcy. My practical questions are these: Why have we not put in an official receiver to see that Germany used her money and resources first to pay her just debts, before she squandered millions on costly and luxurious schemes in her own country ? ' Why has Germany been allowed to r'eparate herself in so thorough and handsome a manner while the Allies have been left to whistle for their money?

Here are some of the schemes spendthrift Germany has carried through in the past three years: She has reconstructed her northern towns destroyed by the Russians. She" has rebuilt nearly four million tons of shipping at a time' when the carrying trade of the world is at its wits' end to know what to do with its surplus tonnage—there are nearly 10 million tons of shipping laid up to-day. The great municipalities have all carried through costly schemes of road and tramway repair and extension.

The new hotels and bank expansion schemes in the big towns are a byword. Pre-war Germany had enough banks for her pre-war trade; why is she permitted to double the accommodation when her legitimate trade has been halved?

Those are only a few of the undertakings into which Germany has been, and is still, pouring milliards of' marks and oceans of energy, most of which my super-official receiver would have turned down with:

" Well enough in their way—but pay your debts first."

My official receiver would sternly refuse to sanction the capital expenditure of public money on those schemes, on the' ground that they are not matters of immediate necessity. He- would have forbidden the immense /expenditure on t^e construction of "the huge underground railway now approaching completion in Berlin. He would stop the expenditure of milliards of marks on the^ building of the new 400-miles canal which is to connect the Danube with the Rhine for ships of 1500 ;tons. My official receiver would also severely limit the extravagant expenditure on the many State theatres and opera houses throughout' Germany. At Berlin's beautiful State opera house I enjoyed a magnificent performance of "The Meistersingers," but times and the reparation payments being so bad my official receiver would have halved the chorus and cut the orchestra of eighty down to one fiddly and a drum. To balance your Budget is surely more important than to balance your orchestra. And, lastly, why is Berlin, already possessed of one famous opera house, now allowed to spend millions of marks on constructing an entirely new one? My official receiver, holding the nation's purse strings wisely certainly'would not sanction this grandiose new building, now rising up in the park, as a work of necessity.