GERMAN FINANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 June 1930, Page 5

GERMAN FINANCE

NEED FOR ECONOMY

[BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.]

BERLIN, June 15.

Drastic criticism of German finance is the keynote of Mr. Parker Gilbert's final report upon the reparations.

He denounces as profligate the expenditure of public bodies right from the Government of the Reich down to the rural communes. This, he says, is the most serious danger threatening the country. Otherwise all promises well. The rationalisation of German industry has largely increased production. The standard of life has risen, and a permanent credit balance has been established in foreign trade; but tho future cannot be faced unless the public finances are extricated from the chaos in -which they have bee nplunged by years of spendthrift methods. Thus far, he says, there has been no effective recognition of the principle that the Government must live within its income. The current expenditure on the Army and Navy has risen to seven hundred million marks, this not including the pensions, as compared with only 459 millions in 1924. Mr. Parker Gilbert’s report coincides with the issue of a Government scheme of economics, which is accompanied by a threat that Clause 48 of the Constitution will be resorted to unless the Reichstag passes economies. This clause would allpw the President to act in any national emergency.