NEW BASIS SOUGHT

Northern Advocate, 17 September 1934, Page 5

NEW BASIS SOUGHT

COMMERCE AND PAYMENTS

DELEGATES TO GERMANY.

BRITISH ANNOUNCEMENT

(British Official Wireless.) (Received 9 a.m.) RUGBY, September 15. The Foreign Office announces that it has been agreed between the British and German Governments that a delegation, headed by Sir Frederick LeithRoss, chief economic adviser to the British Government, shall proceed immediately to Berlin to initiate discussion on the commercial and financial relations of the two countries, as affected by the new German machinery for the control of imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. The import restrictions imposed in decrees recently announced by Dr. Schacht, Minister of Economics in Germany, are being carefully studied by appropriate Government departments in London. Newspapers had anticipated that their effect on the AngloGerman exchange agreement would bo the subject of early negotiations with Germany.

The “Daily Telegraph” says the object of such negotiations would be to seek to define an entirely new basis for commercial relations between Germany and the United Kingdom. In connection with discussions of this broader issue, attention is directed to the decision of Lancashire cotton spinners to reject the German proposal for the settlement of outstanding commercial debts.

This decision has caused little surprise to be voiced in comments in the newspapers which reflect commercial opinion, as the proposals generally are regarded as most unsatisfactory,'

In accordance with the German decrees, full control will be exercised over all imports into Germany from September 24. The machinery for operation and control provides for estimates being made in advance of the amount of foreign exchange likely to be available each month and the limitation of that month’s imports to be strictly controlled by the issue of permits, so that payments may be met within the estimates.

Two important changes are introduced by the new scheme. Firstly, the control applies not only, as in the past, to raw materials, but to imports generally. Secondly, the new machinery will involve the abolition of the general exchange permits which formed the basis of the recent Anglo-Ger-man agreement. The cotton, wool and coal industries have appointed a deputation to see the President of the Board of Trade, Mr Walter Runciman, on Monday, regarding Germany’s debts.