Manawatu Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 21st MAST, 1875.] MONDAY, JULY 8, 1922. CAN GERMANY PAY?

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2165, 3 July 1922, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 21st MAST, 1875.] MONDAY, JULY 8, 1922. CAN GERMANY PAY?

The French Premier, according to this morning:'s cables, is very sceptical about Germany's professed inability to meet her reparation commitments. He declares that her apparent poverty is simply a pretence, and that she is spending- on her mercantile marine enormous sums that really ought to go to the Allies. Her mercantile fleet is now the third commercial fleet in the world, and she is making a bold bid for her pre-war place on the ocean trade routes. Apparently M. Poincare is not the only person who believes that Germany is in a position to pay. The report of the officers of the Department of Overseas Trade concerning economic conditions in the Fatherland as at the end of March last gives a very rosy picture. The increasing number of joint stock companies floated is cited as a sign of intense commercial and industrial activity, while the readiness with which money is obtainable without any difficulty in large quantities is held to demonstrate that the nation cannot be suffering either from an unduly heavy burden of taxation, or from the inconvenience occasioned by the remission of specie and valuables abroad. The factories are working at full time, and the number of unemployed is less than in the years before the war. The number of unemployed on January 1, 1922, was only 210,000, about half the number a year previously, and this in a country whose population amounts to 60,000,000, while with a British population of 43,000,000 the number of unemployed is approximately ten •times as great. The number of bankruptcies in 1921 showed an increase over those of 1920, but compared with pre-war times the number is insignificant. In 1913, the total bankruptcies for the year amounted to 9725, but in 1921 there were only 2975 defaulters. These evidences are being very largely used in Britain in support of the argument that Germany can pay all the reparations and indemnities which the Allies have imposed upon her, but which Mr Lloyd George seenis to think cannot now be collected without endangering the stability both of Germany and her neighbours.