Direst Poverty

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6746, 2 January 1932, Page 7

Direst Poverty

ONE-THIRD OF GERMANY ON RELIEF LONDON, Dec. 30. The Daily Herald’s Berlin correspondent says that 20 million Germans are dragging out a miserable existence on relied’ provided by the remaining two-thirds of the population. The purchasing power of the masses has dwindled to the barest subsistence level. They just manago to buy enough bread, margarine, potatoes and milk, with a little of the cheapest forms of meat once or twice weekly. One-third of the unemployed relief money is deducted for rent. The purchase of any clothing is impossible, while, owing to the recent cuts in wages, thousands _of workers are receiving a mere trifle above the unemployment relief standard.

Middle class people are reducing expenditure most drastically. The majority have had to dismiss their maids, who go to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Many theatres, despite sweeping reductions in their prices, have had to close. .Even tho cheap cinemas are poorly attended. Reparation Payments The Wiggin Committee which investigated Germany’s finances recently reported that her reparation payments in

the past seven years had been as follows:—■ £ 1924 14,000,01)0 1925 49,000,000 1926 00,009,000 .1927 79,000,000 192 S 99,000,0UU .1929 ~ .. .. . 124,000,000 1930 .. 85,000,000 Under tho terms of the Young Plan, which superseded the Dawes Plan in 1930, Germany for tho next five years is to pay an average of about £99,000,000 per annum in reparations. At the some time she owes about £843,000,000 in private debts to foreign bankers and individual investors and her foreign interest payments in 1929 and 1930 were about £40,000,000 a year. The “standstill” agreegment which resulted iu the freezing of German short-term credits, ends in February and the present negotiations aro designed to reach some understanding before the expiry of that period of grace. The Young Plan nonpostponable "annuities wero fixed at 660,000,000, the total annuities at 1,955,800,000 gold marks. Tho total of Germany’s unconditional annuities is thus £33,000,000. France receives £53,000,000 and Britain £20,000,00, including both conditional and unconditional annuities. France’s unconditional annuities are about £25,000,000 and Bri tain’s about £3,000,000.