A BIG BUT HOPELESS CLAIM.

Colonist, Volume XLIX, Issue 11999, 27 July 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

A BIG BUT HOPELESS CLAIM.

The London correspondent of the "Argus" writes: —We have now news from Rome of a remarkable claim that; is being presented against the British Government. But nothing is likely to come of it, except disappointment to its promoters. They are the representatives of the Peruzzi family, long known in Florence as the greatest bankers in Europe. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Popes appointed the Peruzzis to collect the Papal duea in England, and remit them to Pranc3. They were thus brought into cniuitioQ with the Euglish Sings and Courts. Altogether the Crowa borrowed £2,400,000 off these Florentine bankers. Sing Edward 111, in his Royal way, ordered a suspension of the repayments of loans granted to the State. That edict ruined the Peruzzi bank. But the Peruzzi family have always endeavoured to keep the claim alive, and when King Edward was in Rome in 190.'{ one of the family wrote to him, and reminded him of the British indebtedness. With interest of 4 per cent on the originl loan, there is a little bill against this country of over, fifty millions sterling. But there is also the Statute of Limitations.