FRENCH CLAIMS FOR RESTORATION.

Evening Star, Issue 18094, 9 October 1922, Page 4

FRENCH CLAIMS FOR RESTORATION.

The speech of the French Minister of Finance to tho Paris Chamber of Commerce raises an issue behind which seem to lie the explanations for" a great many incidents which have indicated that tho Anglo-French Entente has been subjected to considerable strain. M. Poincare’s speech at Bav-le-Duc after his hasty departure from the London Conference on German guarantees for reparations read most appealingly. There was tho devastated region of France, there wore the Allied terms for its restoration and the German signatures for their execution; yet none of the Allied Powers seemed inclined l to lift a finger towards compelling Germany to fulfil her obligation. Now Count Charles de Lasteyrie. in explaining yet another deficit in the French Budget, says that the cause is Germany’s default in respect of the devastated regions, payment for restoration having to come out of French loan money. Since the war France has consistently declined to make any attempt to balance her Budget. Sho has undoubtedly spent a lot of money on restoring her northern regions, and is charging it up to Germany’s account. There is a danger that the security which must content the lender is tho eternal refrain “ the German will pay.” The further France pursues this policy the deeper sho becomes committed to insistence on reparation in full, however impossible it may bo for Germany to respond. Necessity, born of an initial mistake which has never been corrected, despite a good deal of friendly advice, has caused her to show a cantankerous spirit in tho councils of tho Allies which has pained and puzzled-a number of her sympathisers and admirers unacquainted with her financial position. In the first place, it has to ho remembered that immediately after the armistice tho German Government offered to restore the whole devastated region at its own expense with German workmen and German material. Ths offer was somewhat scornfully rejected, the grounds for refusal being of a social and military rather than a financial nature. Financial authorities have all along maintained that, had tho German offer been accepted, tho French Chamber would not have bad to vote a franc for the purpose, and it would 1 have been possible to balance the Budgets with moderate taxation. But the French Government has spent milliards of francs on restoration. Progress reports of the work appear from time to time. The following •is an extract from one forwarded at the end of Juno to the ‘Lloyd’s Bank Monthly’ by its'Paris correspondent: “Statistics recently published indicate that tho land areas in tho Department of tho Nord which were devastated during the war have made great strides towards restoration to their original . condition. -Application lias been granted for 1,700,000,000 francs to repair dwellings and public buildings. Partially-damaged buildings to the number of 88,000 have been restored, and work is progressing on 100,000 more. Of those which were completely demolished, 2,000 have been rebuilt, whilst 5,000 more arc in course of construction. The damaged factories restored to full or partial operation attain 65 per cent., the number of workmen employed being 57 per cent, of those employed in 1914, the production reaching 53 per cent.” There is, however, another and a rather sinister side to the matter. . Leading French politicians have made statements as to the amount of money voted by the French Chamber for restoration, and tho amounts are curiously conflicting. One reason appears to bo that some of the amounts votqd have been applied to other purposes, as, N fnr example, 4,000,000,000 fraucs for equipping tho Polish army, and other sums for the long succession of “White” Russian generals who for so long opposed the Bolsheviks in the field. But even M. Poincare’s lowest statement of French Government expenditure on restoration is an amount far greater than the highest serious French estimate of the material losses in the devastated regions (15,000,000,000 gold francs), and, as the French Government continually reiterates, the work is very far from being complete. The fact appears to bo emerging that there is .a scandal of the first magnitude in con--1 nection with the devastated region. An American visitor expressed tho opinion that the “graft” in connection with its restoration surpassed anything of the kind ever known in any country or any ago. The door to it was left open by no limit being fixed in tho Treaty of Versailles to tho amount of the German payments. France was given a blank cheque, and, after prodigal expenditure on the strength of it, is in a state bordering on frenzy because of tho extreme uncertainty of its being honored. According to M. Delaisi, one of her own economists, the French Government has deliberately sacrificed the interests of tho mined population of the devastated districts to those of the great French war magnates of industry. The work of restoration was deliberately delayed to suit the convenience of French manufacturers. Tho devastated ten departments were regarded as a new land to be developed, offering extensive markets which could be treated as a French preserve. Allied products were excluded—some' Roubaix spinners were even prevented by the Reconstruction Office from importing machinery they had bought in America. In these circumstances the door was opened to corruption. Contractors fixed their own terms, material was supplied at top prices, commissions lined the pockets of innumerable intermediaries — and nothing said. The scandal of inordinate claims for property destroyed 1 has