REPARATION OFFER

Northern Advocate, 4 May 1923, Page 5

REPARATION OFFER

« — AGGREGATE OF £1,500,000,000 PASSIVE RESISTANCE CONTINUES UNTIL INVADERS WITHDRAW. (Received 10.55 a.m.) LONDON, May 3. It is officially announced tliat the text of the German nole refuses to renounce passive resistance until territories occupied beyond the Treaty of Versailles provision nave been evacuated. Notwithstanding the events of the last few months, Germany is ready to fulfil ell she can for reparations. Every solution, however, must include an elastic factor, as it in impossible to put forward an infallible estimate. Germany cannot raise capital sums out of her own resources, &s trade balances show that there is no surplus. She therefore stands in need of a foreign loan and proposes that Germany's total obligations for deliveries in cash and kind be fixed at thirty milliards of gold marlqp (£1,500,000,000),. which will: be raised by three loans on the international money market. The first instalment, twenty milliard marks, is parable in July, 1927, five milliards in July, 1929, and five milliards in July, 1930. Interest of five per cent, and sinking fund of one cent, will be paid after July, 1927. If the two later loans cannot be fully raised within the time limit it is to be left to an impartial International Commission to decide how the rest is to be raised. This is the utmost limit that Germany is able to pay, but if others do not share that opinion the German Government proposes to submit the reparations problem t-o an International Commission, as Mr C. E. Hughes (American State Secretary) suggested. The Government is prepared to devise suitable measures in order that the whole of Germany's national resources shall participate in guaranteeing servie© of the loans. It is, however," necessary that high-handed seizure of pledges and sanctions should cease in future. This implies that the stipulations' of - the Versailles Treaty, refusing economic -equality to Germany, should cease. : The first , essential to . negotiations must be tlie Te®tor£i,tion of the status quo ante in the shortest possible tinie; ftlflo the release of German prisoners, Iwhil© those exp-elled must be allowed to return' to ; the Ruhr.—- j A,&nd and ,N.Z: v •

/ , .THROWN OUT. ON THE MOMENT. • ANSWER-BEING CONSIDERED. (Received 11.50 a.m.) . PARIS, May 3. The French . Cabinet rejected the German offer, owing to the conditions laid down, the absence of guarantees and insufficiency of the amount offered. M. Poincare will confer with Belgium in framing, a reply and in deciding what communication shall be held with the other Allies. —A. and N.Z. FRENCH REJECTION. PRACTICALLY CERTAIN. (Received l - a.m.) PARIS, May 3. The general tenor of French views is that France will probably refuse even to consider the German note. °Le Temps" declares that Germany, in demanding evacuation of the Ruhr before the loans can be raised or payments made, is rejecting one of France's fundamental conditions. A. and N.Z. PRICE OF PEACE. , UNIMPAIRED INDEPENDENCE. (Received 12.15 p.m.) BERLIN. May 3. Herr Cuno, in a speech to the States on the German note, emphasised that the price of peace must be one which Germany could pay, under such conditions as would not infringe her inand safeguarding hei against sanctions which would prevent her from paying her reparations obligations. The Government at all hazards would adhere to this policy. Only by negotiations face to fact could they discover what the othei side regarded as a sufficient guarantee —A. and N.Z. NO OPTION LEFT. MORE INTENSE EXPLOITATION. (Received 12.30 p.m.) B PARIS, May 3. A semi-official statement regaiding the Germfn offer says that the Franco Belgian Governments are faced wit! practically no option but intensifyinj exploitation of the Ruhr. They con sider that Germany is claiming remis sion of her huge debt. t She shoul* have offered six times the amount sug gested. The offer simply suppresse the Versailles Treaty and the Allici victory. "Le Matin" declares that it woul represent ruin and defeat for Franc without precedent if there were an thought of taking the offer into coi sideration. The Ffench Cabinet meets to-da; It is cxpcctcd that its reply wi amount to total rejection.

. The "Petit Journal," M. Loucheur's. • organ, while not condemning and not rejecting, says that the offer ia "partially insufficient and partially unacceptable. The paper reproaches the Germans for again lacking psychologi- , cal sense. —A. and N.Z. LEAGUE INTERVENTION. (Received l.'W p.m.) j LONDON, May 3. After a mooting of the "Labour Party > in the House of Commons regarding I the Ruhr and tlio position of affairs - in Centfal Europe, a statement was is- - sued requesting an immediate special 1 ! meeting of the League of Nations to arrange for the admission of Germany s and to proceed to settle the conditions 1 of national security in Europe. | The Labour Party, without commit- j d ting itself to all the details of the o German note, believes that it affords a y basis of negotiations between the Geri- man and Allied Governments. The party urges the British government to y. issue a statement to that effect and to ,11 promote an immediate conference,—A., and N.Z.