REPARATIONS SETTLED

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1929, Page 9

REPARATIONS SETTLED

GERMAN PAYMENTS FIXED FOREIGN CONTROL TO CEASE BRITAIN MAKES SACRIFICE By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright. ? . Australian Frees Association. i Received June 9, 5.5 p.m.' Paris, June 8. The text of the experts’ reparations, report, ■which was signed on Friday evening, is 18,000 words apart from the annexes thereto. It is being published on Sunday, but in the meantime fresh details are available. It is anticipated Great Britain will receive £20,900,000 out of each German average annual payment of approximately £100,000,000. The report will be forwarded to the Reparations Commission for submission to the Governments concerned, and, if adopted, Germany will have a specific financial burden to carry for 50 years. The creditor Powers have fixed the annual payments from Germany on Mr. Owen Young’s plan, -which virtually scraps the Dawes scheme. The plan theoretically comes into force on April 1, 1930, but actually will begin to oper- ’ ate on September I this year. The experts agree that all the complicated foreign controls imposed on Germany by the Dawes plan will disappear. Germany instead will freely undertake to pay an average annuity of £102,500,000 for 37 years, followed by an annuity of £85,000,000 for a further 21 years covering war debts only. The annuities will be divided unconditionally, or conditional on the latter being delayable with the approval of a committee to be appointed from the directors of the International Bank, the former furnishing a large capital’ sum to which France attaches importance. Germany’s liability for the costs of the army of occupation eeases on September 1 next, the suggested date from which the scheme should operate. This is regarded as meaning the evacuation of the Rhineland on that date. The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Paris states that Great Britain’s share will be somewhat under the strict proportion which has hitherto been in force, but there are compensating advantages. The share will no longer be a fixed proportion, but the' amount - varies year by year according to our debt payments, .for which it provides a year to year cover. Besides this there is a constant-amount to meet the claims of the Dominions. Our share in the early years will be on a somewhat higher basis than the present proportion, but in later years rather lower. Reparations in kind will be maintained for ten years, beginning wi th goods to the value of £37,500,000 and decrees-, ing to £15,000,000. This limitation alone is worth a sacrifice from the British viewpoint. There is no concealment in British, quarters that allowance sacrifices have been necessary of which Britain has accepted the largest share. The British delegation accepted these more readily ‘ inasmuch as i x felt there could only be benefit from a settlement while a failure of the negotiations would be a . calamity. The International Bank will have a share capital of £20,000,000 subscribed by the central banks of the Powers, represented on the experts’ committee, of which a quarter will fee paid up immediately. The bank will act as ft clearing house for the payments of reparations and deliveries of raw materials, besides safeguarding Germany’s credit. The bank’s profits will be placed in a common fund for the benefit mainly of the Governments concerned, but 25 per cent, will be placed, in reserve to assist Germany in paying. the last annuities. It is estimated that France will receive a total of £968,350,000 compared with about £1,000,000,000 originally claimed by M. Poincare. UNITED STATES’ OPINION. GENERAL APPROVAL GIVEN. Received June 9, 5.5 p.m. Washington, June 8. - The signing of the experts’ reparations report is hailed in administrative circles generally as a potent factor leading to stabilisation throughout Europe with consequent benefits to the United States, but one official, sharply dissenting from this opinion, suggested that the proposed flotation, in the United States of the issue of German bonds provided in the settlement, may react unfavourably on credit conditions - here and in other nbn-European countries. This official declared that the offering of German bonds would probably cause American investors to lend less money to Latin America and Canada, which for many years had been., heavy borrowers in the United States’ credit market. The German Press gives the agreement a mixed reception. The Vorwaerts describes it as a step forward politically, showing the will to destroy Germany no longer exists. The Berliner Tageblatt says the most important aspect is not the evacuation of the Rhineland—that was bound to follow—but the evacuation of German economic life, which- for a decade has been occupied by the creditors, who believed the# Fad an unlimited right to exploit Germany. The Vossisch Zeitung says: inere will be a revision of the plan when the Allied’countries return to economic reason. It is absurd to think one. nation can pay reparations to the others for two generations.” Nationalist organs>describe the agree-ment-as fatal to Germany, and saj the Nationalists intend to oppose it in . the Reichstag.