WAR REPARATIONS

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 21 January 1930, Page 5

WAR REPARATIONS

ITALY AND OZECHO-SLDVAKI A. j AGREEMENT REACHED. i United Press Association—By Electric Telegrapu Copyright.! THE HAGUE, Jan. 20. A compromise has been reached at the reparations conference whereby i Italy receives 10,000,000 gold marks [from Czeeho-Slovakia in respect of the liberation loans instead of 11,000,000. The agreement was only reached after great difficulty had been overcome. It enables Italy to pay the 9,000,000 marks guaranteed to Britain during the August conference. So Italy signs the Young Plan without reservation. It is understood the compromise is due to strongly worded intervention by Mr. Philip Snowden, who, it is rumoured, compared the Little Entente with a man who robbed another of his watches and then offered to lend the victim money to buy one back-

M. Benes, the Czecho-Slovakian Foreign Minister, was the object of Mr. Snowden’s special attack.

PROPERTY IN SAMOA. FINALLY DISPOSED OF. *>»lf** —Pres** Association, i WELLINGTON, Jan. id). With reference to the cablegramsfrorn The Hague in yesterday’s papers announcing that an agreement had been reached between New Zealand ’and Germany, the Prime Minister explained that by the terms of the Young report it was recommended that all German confiscated property which was not liquidated or liquid, or finally disposed of, should be handed back. In the recent discussions, at The Hague some little doubt had arisen as to whether the confiscated German properties in Western Samoa, which had been vested in the Crown some years ago, could be regarded as “finally disposed of” bv the agreement between Germany aucl New Zealand recently concluded at The Hague, These properties would not be returned but were to be regarded as “finally His- i posed of.” On the other hand, German interest had been recognised in property of small value in New Zealand.