AUSTRIAN CRISIS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 210, 6 August 1931, Page 7

AUSTRIAN CRISIS.

BANK OF ENGLAND TO RESCUE. FRENCH SCHEME FOILED. A fascinating story pf international intrigue, with the historic banking house of Rothschild fighting to save a member of the famous dynasty from disaster, lies behind the great Austrian financial crisis which threatened to plunge Central Europe into economic chaos (says the \ ienna correspondent of a London paper). The financiers of France and England resolved to save Austria when the crash came, but while Franco wanted to bribe or blackmail Austria into forsaking the Customs Union project w ith Germany, England wanted to safeguard her Central European interests and save the Austrian currency by allowing Austria a free hand. NEW ECONOMIC PLAN. Sir Robert Ivindersley, the British agent in Vienna, is the author of a new economic plan in which this policy is outlined. It is not denied that France used her knowledge of Austria’s difficulties to precipitate and exploit tho troubles of the Credit Anstalt Bank, Central Europe’s largest banking and industrial institution, in order to force Austria to her knees. Then Britain stepped in. While tho French financiers were propounding their terms and the French Press thundered for an undertaking by Austria never to join Germany, the Bank of England, in conjunction with the great London house of Rothschilds, suddenly advanced the sum of £4,600.000 to tide Austria over her grave crisis. No' political safeguards were demanded, and the French scheme for a financial control over Austria’s finances and a formal avowal never to join Germany seems to have fallen through. Tho chairman and largest shareholders of tho ill-fated Credit Anstalt Bank is Baron Louis Rothschild. HUGE SACRIFICES. Before the crash came he sacrificed nearly £2,000,000 to stave off disaster, but in vain. After the Collapse he sacrified a further million pounds. It was difficult for Baron Louis to secure help from the Paris branch of his family owing to - the latter’s closo connection with French policy and finance. Help came from London, and Sir Robert > Kindersley was able to secure an advance of £4,500,000 from the Bank of England, in conjunction with the powerful London Rothschilds, to avert a catastrophe.