REPARATIONS PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 9

REPARATIONS PROBLEM.

STILL NO AGREEMENT.

FRANCO-GERMAN VIEWS.

A SERIOUS DISCREPANCY.

MR. MacDONALD'S EFFORTS.

By Telegraph—Pi ess Association—Copyright

(Received July 1, 8.5 pan.) ' LAUSANNE, July 3

There is still a discrepancy of £2OO. (XX), 000 butween the French and German reparation settlement proposals. Germany offers; £100,000.000, whereas iranco now is demanding £500,000,000. Iho British Primo Minister, Mr. MaeDonald, is showing complete disregard of his medical advisers' injunctions to rest. Daily lie is working until one o'clock in the morning, and yet is out of doors again at 7.00 a.m., since when he has toiled incessantly to produce an agreement:. Asked whether he was still optimistic Mr. Ma.c Donald said ho was always hopetul until a breakdown occurred. The Reparations Bureau sat for 13 hours preparing a scheme for submission to the German delegates, which would safeguard the position oil the creditor nations in respect of their own debts to America. Ihe difficulty is that the Germans will not consent to a. safeguarding clause, as they say that if provision is made against the possibility of the United States refusing to cancel debts it will defeat the very finality which it is tho primary aim of the conference to achieve.

Before going to Paris, the French Prime Minister, M. Herriot, expressly stated that France would not recede from the safeguarding clause in regard to the debts to America. He said he knew he could count on the support of Britain. LAUSANNE PARLEYS. THE FINANCIAL ASPECT. ECONOMIC INVESTIGATIONS. British Wireless. KUGBY, June 30. At Lausanne the Conference Bureau, consisting of Mr. Mac Donald, as president, and ono representative from each delegation, worked into the small hours of the morning on the reparations problem. It resumed early to-day and has been almost constantly at work since. The Ministers of Commerce, or their representatives, have bee:a considering measures necessary to solve! the economic and financial difficulties responsible for, or tending to prolong, the present crisis, in preparation for a wider international conference to consider the question in the near future.