BREATHING SPACE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 7, 8 December 1931, Page 7

BREATHING SPACE

A GERMAN NECESSITY. PAYMENT OF W’AR DEBTS. I LONDON TIMES’S COMMENT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, Dec. 7. “The question of priority of German payments is academic,” says the Times in an editorial. “Reparations cannot be paid unless German trade is restored, enabling payments to be made without endangering the stability of the currency. This depends on a revival of confidence, which is only possible if Germany is allowed breathing space to recover her solvency. The Baslo committee must almost inevitably recommend a complete moratorium of all reparation payments until German internal stability is restored, otherwise the whole structure of international credit will again be thrown into confusion. French insistence on priority is only intelligible if an attempt be made to maintain the juridicial integrity of tlie Young Plan.” HITLER’S ACTIVITIES. The Berlin correspondent of the Times says that the Bruening Government nas taken no direct notice ot Herr Hitler’s activities, which some regard as an indication that the Chancellor’s grip is tailing. The Pans correspondent of the Times reports that Herr Hitler’s declaration that a Nazi Government would be unwillingto pay the “monstrous extortion passing under the name of reparations” has aroused indignation, mingled with anxiety and rising doubts as to whether negotiations between France and Germany are useful inasmuch as the Nazis might repudiate any agreement made with Dr Bruening, the Chancellor. The presence of Herr Rosenberg in London and Herr Hitler’s intended visit to Rome are regarded as manoeuvres to enlist foreign sympathy at France’s expense.