WAR REPARATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 25995, 9 January 1947, Page 5

WAR REPARATIONS

GERMAN MACHINE TOOLS VALUABLE CONSIGNMENT FDR N.Z. (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, Jan. 8. A New Zealand Government representative will go to Germany next week to inspect a consignment of 15 machine tools, which have been allocated to New Zealand under the German reparation agreement. The German valuation of the tools is about £53,000, but it is considered that their present market value is probably twice that figure in New Zealand currency. British and American authorities in Germany have now devised an emergency delivery scheme, under which plant allocated as reparations is lifted and removed as quickly as possible. As a result, it is hoped that the tools allocated to, New Zealand will be transferred to Britain for transhipment without undue delay. It has previously been found that considerable quantities of plant which are intended for reparations are neither being used by the Germans nor uplifted by the new owners. It is understood that when the tools are received in New Zealand they vHll either be allocated to Government undertakings or offered for sale. The equipment comes chiefly from German armament, chemical, and aircraft plants, which were suppressed under the Paris agreement.' : ~ New Zealand, has been allocated .6 per cent, of the industrial equipment /including shipping), to be taken from Germany by way of war reparations. She has already received a small motor ship, named the Gaarden, valued at about £47,000. but even when the machine tools are delivered the Dominion will still have received only little more than half of the total amount due to her from industrial plant and shipping already dispersed. FURTHER ALLOCATIONS PROBABLE. ■The total value of reparations received by the Dominion will depend upon the final overall value of reparations collected. Advice was recently received in London that the Americans have set aside a further 35 plants in their zone for reparations purposes. New Zealand may receive a further allocation from these when the plants are inspected and the requirements of the various countries interested have been assessed.