BRITAIN AND REPARATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20254, 14 May 1929, Page 8

BRITAIN AND REPARATION.

Coming as they have on tho eve of a general election campaign, the new proposals for dividing up whatever may be obtained from Germany in reparation payments have naturally been caught up and commented upon freely. This is, to a certain extent, a new development, Though what seems now a very long time ago—actually it is only ten years—the suggestion that Germany should be made to pay tho whole cost of the war was used in an election campaign, this phase of the after-war settlement has not been very conspicuous in controversial politics since. Possibly the doubt whether any appreciable sum would ever be collected, which long prevailed, had something to do with the equable way the whole question was viewed. Now, however, a different temper is being displayed. The current campaign gives vivacity to what is being said, but it is not conceivably responsible for all the feeling shown. It is the phenomenon, rare but not unknown, of a patient people at last stung to resentment. Generally speaking, the standpoint taken against the suggestions for redistributing the reparation yield is the same as that behind the Balfour Note. That document was phrased with judicial calm. The new protests are not. The reason why is not hard to find. In the meantime Britain has gone steadinly on her way, meeting her own obligations, making substantial concessions to her debtors, in some instances waiting in vain for any repayment at all, meanwhile shouldering a financial burden without equal among the nations. The reward has been little appreciation from those paid, little gratitude from those in whose favour debts have been written down, practically to the vanishing point in the case of one or two. When, as a climax, it was suggested Britain should receive less- in reparation percentage, the Dominions nothing at all, not to make the load on the vanquished of more bearable weight, but to give other participants more, is it any wonder British patience broke 1 ? The chorus of resentful comment is not wholly due to the election campaign, and those who seem to have been astonished at its outbreak have no reason to trace it to that origin. Both explanation and justification of it can be found in a decade of figures covering debt repayment and reparation yield.