Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-12-19
GERMAN BANKRUPTCY

THE German government is in
! default of its agreed payments.
1t says it cannot pay them and
seems to have convinced Great
Britain that 1t can't pay and must
have postponement Of debt paying
for a time until it can get on it's
feet The French think this is all
pretence and that Germany can pay
and will pay if she once is con-
WINGED that she will have to give up
more territory or more gold. In
the United States Germany is re-
garded as bankrupt and unable to
pay her debts, being ripe for the
hands of a receiver. Mr.. G. w.
Barron who writes for the Wall
Street Journal goes on to prove by
figures that Germany has deliber-
ately bankrupted herself for the ex-
press purpose Of avoiding payment
of indemnities to the victors. He
says:
"The declaration in Switzerland
in 1918 and months before the arm
istice, was that Germany had made
every preparation SO that in event
of her failure at arms she would be
prepared to win the peace. It was
believed that her weapons would
be tears and pleadings. But an i'm
poverished world, mourning its own
dead and wounded, was found to be
no field for conquest by such weap-
ons. It was not within the range
of reason to expect Germany to
willingly pay the assessed 50 billion
gold dollars, or more than half her
fair valuation in the world markets.
But nobody could have dreamed
that she would have bankrupted
herself and brought her valuation
in world markets to below five bill
lion dollars within three years after
the signing Of the peace treaty.
1T is a serious matter to make
accusation against any nation in an
international crisis and therefore
the facts without adjectives must
speak for themselves.
Germany stands in danger of a
receivership by her creditors. She
protests before the world that she
is making every effort to meet her
financial obligations and to ward
off the seizure Of the Ruhr coal
fields by the French with possibly
the taking Of the Rhine valley and
still further possibilities Of Ger
many's dismemberment.
Following the Franco-Prussian
war Germany made Reichsbank
and a credit collection and none
tary system that stood a model be-
fore the world. After 1910 she
made three years of war prepare
ton and endured four years Of
fighting on every front without
heavy taxation and with war bond
issue less than that Of either
France, England or the United
States.
ct is therefore uncomfortable
that there was not within Germany
the financial brains and in her unit
ed people and her united banking
system the financial power to main
tain her currency and her banking
system on a substantial basis, had
she the will or the ambition so to
do. ......
Should it be expected, however,
in all human nature, that Germany
at the close Of the war should have
ambition to pay indemnities to
either Great Britain or France or
to pay pensions to French soldiers7
Was it not natural that Germany
should put her idle and her war
pensioners on the railroad payrolls,
doubling the number of railroad
employees after the war to 1900. 900?
Should it be expected otherwise
than that Germany should scheme
to employ her own people, prevent
the purchase of foreign goods and
dodge taxing her people, for the
benefit of the armies and the ma
tions that had defeated her and
crushed her national ambitions1"
After printing lot Of figures,
going to show that Germany has
deliberately spent more money than
she should with a view to bringing
on her bankruptcy, Mr.. Barron
adds:
Germany is committing finan-
cial suicide while teasing the world
with her apparent prosperity and
full employment on an absolutely
fictitious basis. The greatest activ-
ity in the world centers about a
f;rn Has Eermauv been burning