BRITAIN’S FEAR

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 9

BRITAIN’S FEAR

WILL GERMANY DEFAULT ? [Special to this • Star.’] WELLINGTON, December 22. According to Mr C. S. Thomas, wellknown Christchurch barrister, who returned to-day fnfiu an English visit, the prominent business and sioual men whom he met were apt to be very l despondent over the financial position. “ Their one fear,” he explained, “is that Germany may default, and if she does, then other nations will follow suit, and wholesale default by nations means depleted spending power of the peoples and curtailed demand for such products as New Zealand exports. It seems certain fi'om information I gathered that Germany will do her ' best to_ evade payment, and there is a strong impression that she is not doing her honest best to meet her international obligations. She is spending lavishly, and has invested her own capital in other countries such as Holland, where a tremendous number of subsidiary industrial concerns have been started on German capital. These show great profits, whilst the parent concerns in Germany will go bankrupt when a call is made for- further taxation.”