GERMANY CAN PAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 246, 16 September 1929, Page 2

GERMANY CAN PAY

WARNING TO SPENDTHRIFTS. THE REAL FACTS. The Berlin correspondent’ of the London Daily Mail says; —Reading between the lines of the report of Mr Parker Gilbert, the Agent-General tor Reparation Payments, one finds proof of the fact that Germany can easily pay the annuities recommended by the expert committee on reparations. Mr Parker Gilbert has not, as in previous reports, given' liis own opinion of the extraordinary and unbusmosslike way in which Germany manages her financial affairs and has not offered advice. He simply states the facts in his 168pago report. His chapter on the Budget and the extraordinary budget, in which the facts are marshalled with extraordinary skill, is an indictment of the German authorities and their constantly increasing extravagance. In 1928-29 tho revenue rose by £34,000,000 and expenditure by £78,1100,000. Next year the revenue is estimated at £560,600,000. The Army and Navy budget has risen from £23,000,000 in 1925 to £36,000,000 this year. Increased pay in the Army and lor Army pensioners accounts this year for an increase of There is an annual expenditure of £16,000,000 to compensate Germans whose Government stocks went down in value, and this year there is £12,000,060 Vo compensate Germans for property which they lost abroad through the war. The difficulty is to find a man who will control expenditure in the Reich and in the separate States, Prussia, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and the rest of them, which all have their separate budgets, and the cities and communes. Air Gilbert sees hope in the loung plan. “The experts new plan,” lie writes, “provides opportunities for the development of a second financial programme, not merely because of til© reduction it makes in the reparation annuities, but also because it generally reduces the uncertainty as to the extent of Germany's reparation obligations.” . . During the first nine months or the fifth Dawes scheme year Great Britain received £19,800,060 in reparations and F’rance £54,000,000.