BELGIUM'S SHARE

Northern Advocate, 3 January 1922, Page 4

BELGIUM'S SHARE

Britain and France have had so many conferences regarding European affairs and the reparations 'question that they have perhaps been inclined to forget Belgium's very keen interest in these matters. If the Allies do not insist upon regular payments by Germany, Belgian interests will be the first to suffer. The Belgians have no nvuns of bringing effective pressure to on Germany, and they have several times expressed a strong desire to see tbo Allies at all hazards acting in concord in keeping Germany up to the mark. It will be remembered that the Belgians were greatly disappointed" at the territorial'settlement under the

Peace Treaty so far as they were .effected. They have had 50,000 buildings destroyed, and the war damage to their industrial establishments alone is put at £500,000,000. Before the war the

Belgian debt was 149 millions. The heroic resistance of Belgium in the early days of the war gave the Allies a momentary breathing space that was probably the chief factor in prevoati-ig a very great disaster. In recognition of that stand the Allies made the Belgian claims a first charge on the German reparation paymentc. The new arrangements now under discussion, whereby in lieu of gold France receives payment in kind by the Germans, and Britain makes offset, in v'evv of the change, would leave Belgium apparently on a less favourable footing than before. Germany systematically 'a: I waste Belgian manufacturing pVint* with up-to-date machinery capab'r of competing successfully with German industries, and it is no more than just that the Belgian people should be assured that priority in reparation they lieve been promised.