GERMAN TRANSACTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 611, 22 January 1923, Page 5

GERMAN TRANSACTION.

SHIPPING MAGNATE’S ACTION.

ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS' SECURED,

By Electric Telegraph—Copyright-

Received January 22, 8.56 a,tn. LONDON, Jan. 20. The Daily Mail’s Paris correspondent says that a fresh instance of the robbery of many thousands of marks from the French Treasury by the German Government and shipping magnates is provided by the German shipbuilding, subsidy. After the Gormans had given up all but half a million tons of shipping to tho Allies, the Germany Treasury provided a subsidy of 12,000 million marks, then, worth £48,000,000, to build 2,500,000 tons. Sixteen million pounds had been paid when a heavy fall in tho mark occurred. The shipping barons were determined, though they were getting one-third of tho new fleet from the State, not to bear- tho loss. Accordingly they sued the Treasury before a secret arbitration tribunal to make up the difference duo to the fall in the currency, which they, with the coal and steel barons, hod a large share in bringing about. The tribunal ordered the Treasury to pay an additional eighteen thousand million marks, then worth three million pounds. Still the shipowners and builders were not content as the mark was sliding further, and they inserted a sliding scale in tho agreement, with the result that the Treasury paid thirty-two thousand million marks in the first four instalments instead of twelve thousand millions, Last month the Reparations Commission heard of this strange operation and asked tho Government to find means to relieve the Treasury of these charges. Despite this warning, the Treasury paid the shipping trust another fifteen thousand million marks or half a million pounds.—United Service.