GERMAN AFFAIRS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 18 October 1930, Page 5

GERMAN AFFAIRS.

A STREET BUT, COMMUNISTS AND HITLERITES. Press Association Electric Telegraph—Copyright COLOGNE, Friday. Knives and revolvers were freely used in a street fight between Communists and Hitlerites. Five were wounded and many arrests were made. CLASH WITH POLICE. BERLIN, Friday. Communists returning from a meeting of metal strikers in North Berlin clashed with the police, when shots were fired from houses. The police replied and cleared the streets. An hour later, when the police were patrolling, shots were again fired from houses. Reinforcements were summoned and were received with volleys of stones frotii a large crowd, also from the windows of houses. Using their truncheons, the police again cleared the streets and searched houses. Sixty persons were arrested. WAR ON BANKS. BERLIN, Friday. The correspondent of the “NewsChronicle” at Berlin reports:—“War on the banks, Stock Exchange, and the whole system of international serfdom,” has been declared by the Nazis in a series of resolutions they are submitting to the Reichstag. The resolutions propose the confiscation without compensation of the property of bankers, stockbrokers, Jews, and others of foreign origin who have settled in Germany since 1913; all the great banks, including the Reichsbanlc, to become State property immediately; tlie maximum interest rate to be fixed at 5 per cent, of which 1 per cent will bo used for the amortisation of the national debt. Money invested abroad must be returned to Germany if the authorities demand, subject to penal servitude and a fine equivalent to the amount invested abroad. Heavy penalties are also proposed for dealing in .stock exchange margins and futures. German financiers who subsidised the Fascists from fear of the .Socialists are alarmed by the proposals. MOMENTOUS SPEECH. BERLIN, Friday. The first official hint that Germany might conceivably seek suspension of reparations payments was heard in the Reiehstag during a momentous speech, in which Dr. Bruening for the first time faced the serried ranks of the Hitlerites. The .speech generally was heard with astonishing calm, and the interruptions from the Communists were by no means abnormal. The Chancellor, stressing the economic difficulties, said that on the ability to carry out the Government’s programme depended Whether “we shall utilise the measures placed at Germany’s disposal by the treaty for averting danger from her economy currency.” The Government is prepared to resort to dictatorial measures if the emergency powers are rejected. A reduction of all wages and salaries is essential, and must be effected either by agreements of workers and employers or 'by new legislation.