DEMANDS MADE ON FRANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24237, 21 September 1940, Page 5

DEMANDS MADE ON FRANCE

MAINTAINING ARMY OF OCCUPATION COMPARISON WITH 1921 REPARATIONS (British Official Wireless) (Received September 20, 7.30 p.m.) RUGBY, September 19. The French Journal Official of September 14 publishes a law authorizing the opening of a special account for the maintenance cost of the German Army of occupation. The German Government had fixed this figure at 20,000,000 reichmarks a day. This is the figure which, under the terms of the armistice, France was to pay irrespective of any demands by Italy or of what reparations Hitler may consider imposing at the time of the Peace Treaty. Thus Germany is asking 7,300,000,000 reichmarks a year from France.

It is recalled in a statement issued by the Foreign Office that under “the Paris decision” of January 1921 reparations were fixed at 2,000,000,000 marks. Actually the total ever paid by Germany amounted to 17,000,000 marks. While the sums now demanded by Germany and those she was asked to pay in

reparations in 1919 cannot very fruitfully be compared because of the change in the real value of the mark today and that of 1919 it is yet clear that leaving requisitioning and payments in kind out of the question it can be reckoned that France, territory with about onethirtieth of the paying power of 1919 Germany, has to pay a sum three times the actual maximum annuity ever fixed under the Dawes Plan.

The correspondent of The Daily Express on the Franco-Spanish frontier says the Germans have collected over £1,000,000 in fines imposed on impoverished municipalities in Western France for attempts to impede the German Army. Brest paid £lOO,OOO, Bordeaux £90,000 and Paris nearly £200,000.