GERMANY PAYING UP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 August 1925, Page 7

GERMANY PAYING UP.

FIFTY MILLIONS THIS YEAR

DAWES SCHEME AT WORK

Germany is paying reparations under the Dawes scheme with a degree of regularity which she. never attempted to achieve before (writes a London correspondent). Under the previous arrangement, by which the Allies attempted to collect £100,000,000 a year from Germany, through the Reparations Commission, Germany was always far behind in her payments, and periodically sent notes to the Allies <h claming that .she was so hard up that she must discontinue paying altogether. It was the receipt of notes of thi<s kind, instead of gold, that -resulted pi Fra.nce seizing the Ruhr in 192: During the five 'years that elapsed after the signing of the Versailles Treaty in June, 1919, Germany paid £420,000,000 in reparations to the Allies, but less than £100,000,000 oi the amount was in cash. Tlie greater pant wa.s made up by reparations in kind (chiefly in coal sent from- Germany to. Fi-ance) and the value of the German, Government property in territories) transferred to the Ail lies-. Great Britain, received £20,000,000 from the sale of 418 German, merchant ships transferred to her as reparations for the ships .sunk by German mines and ,submarines; .and Franco received £20.000.000 in the form of German Government property iin Alsace-Lorraine, and the coal mines in the Seva.r Valley. Under the Dawes scheme, which ctaane into operation in .September last, Germany has to pay £50,000,000 in reparations during 1924-25, and the amount is to ibe increased each year until it reaches £125.000,000 in 1928-29. The reparations money is derived from the earnings, of the German raiilwafyfrj on inclinsftrial debentures, and / the .assignment o-f taxes on alcohol, tobacco, sugar .and beer.

Approaching Stability. “The report of Mr. S. Parker Gilbert, the American official who, fills the .post of Agent-General for Reparation Payments, under the Dawes .scheme, states that during the first eight months the Hc-heme lias been in .operation. Germanv has paid £44.750,000. So it looks a.s >if the full total of £50,000,000 for the first year will be reached, after allowing for the payment out of the reparations money of tlie cost of maintenance of the armies of occupation, amounting to about £10,000,(XX a year. The report declares that, la.lithougn Germany has not recovered from the financial and economic disorganisation into which die was plunged by bad statesmanship after the war ended, .she is approaching a condition, of .stability. Hie 1-aist German budget is the first that has shown a, .surplus since the war bewail, and German means of the international loan of £40,000,000 on which the Dawes scheme is based. Industrially Germany is well equipped, and bias resources for production on a large scale, .adds Mr. Gilbert; -but there is still a, pronounced shortage of working capital, and time must elapse before Germany is able to regain her footing in foreign markets. Theory of Doctrinaires. But Germany doesn’t like paying reparations under the Dawes scherne, which iis based on an investigation by an international committee of experts into capacity to .pay any more than .she liiked paying before the mo]icmo came into existence. fore, the German newspapers have given great prominence to some speeches at the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce, held at Brussels recently, in which dictrinaires indulged in the familiar theory that if Germany iis to .be compelled to coutinue paying repara.tious the trade of the Allies receiving reparations mud. he injured heoau.se Germany mud build up a colossal export trade _in order to earn the money wuth which to pay. It was claimed by speakers at the Brnssel-s Congress thiat although the Dawes scheme ,iis serving a great colist ructiive purpose (that of putting Germanv on her feet bv means of the international loan of £40.000,000) the Dawes scheme eventually wall disappear, under the realisation by the Allies that the only way of .solving the reparations problem, .and the world s financial tangle is to wipe the international .slate clean of all obligations arising o-ut of the Avar. _ _ This mlav lie true, but it is a hit early to tliinlc about it, as far as German are concerned'. Germany did more during the vfa.r to bring the Allies, to. the verge of mm than her reparation payments will ever do And the longer Germany is- compelled to pay reparations, the longer is she, likely to remember the lesson that war doesn’t pay.