New-York tribune., 1921-04-21
Says Germans
Live in Luxury
ToCheat Allies
French Economic Envoy
to u. S. Pictures Govern
ment Squandering Money
Among the Home People
Asserts Citizens Prosper
Suspects a Deliberate At
tempt, by Many Subsidies,
TO Bankrupt Treasury

BOSTON, April 20.--Discussing at
titudes of Germany and the Allies
toward reparations figures, J. A. M. de
Sanchez, head of the economic division
of the French Commission in the United
States, told he Harvard Club tonight
that "the German state itself is fast
approaching bankruptcy, and it would
seem that the German government is
deliberately working with this end in
view.
at has sqIandered money in an as
founding manner" he said, expla aiming
that the government had subsidized
"every conceivable scheme" distributed
funds to assist unemployment and
cheaper food, run its national rail
ways and all departments ut huge
deficits and employed many more per-
sons than were engaged at the same
tasks before the war.
In the last year, he declared, the
state railways showed earning def
cts of 10000, 100000 marks, "a sum
larger than it cost to construct the
lines, at normal exchange rates" The
state railways employ 100000 persons,
compared with slightly above 100000 in
1914, and yet Germany complains
she has neither wagons nor labor to
transport coal from tne hunT TO
France, he said.
Postal telegraph service employees
number 10000, compared with $4,000
before the war, and civil service ad-
ministration workers have increased
from $500 to $4,000, he added.
People Really Prosperous
"The finances of the German Re-
public are indeed in deplorablc con-
dition, but the German people them
selves are in reality prosperous, ex-
cept those on fixed incomes" M. De
Sanchez continued. "The Germans are
living in greater luxury now than ever
before.
According to the League of Ma
ticns, Germany pays IL per cent of her
national income to the state in taxes.
the United States per cent, Great
Britain q per cent and France 18 per
cent
at is, of course, not expected that
Germany can make the reparations pay
ments entirely in gold, but if she is
willing to do so, she can meet all of
the sums demanded by paying in labor,
in goods, in raw materials and to GER
tam extent in gold.
We can find plenty of work for Ger
man labor and German machinery in
France in new development which will
compensate US for our losses, if not
actually IN the task Of reconstruction"
Holds Ability to Pay Proved
The Germans themselves, M. De San
chez asserted, had supplied definite
grounds for believing they could meet
the Allies demand of $56 800 900. 900. to
be paid over a forty two-year period,
plus 121s per cent tax on German ex-
ports.
He quoted from a paper written in
1914 by DR.. Karl Helfferich. form er
Minister. of Finance and Vice -Chancel-
lor of the German Empire, which
stated that in twenty years Germany
would have national wealth of $780,
600, 900, compared with $4,000, O0O,-
GOO for France and $105, 100000, 900 for
Great Britain"
M De Sanchez declared France, Rus
sla and the new states of Central
Europe lost greater percentage of
men in the war than Germany, and re-
minded his hearers that Germany's
pre-war army deprived her of an eco.
nomic man power Of 10000 now re.
duced to 100000
The more one familiarizes himself
with all angles of the reparations
questions" he declared, "the more in
evitable is the conclusion that it's So
luton rests upon Germany's realization
of the fact that she has deceived ne
one as to her real ability to make rep
, arations and that she will have til.
. sympathy and cooperation of no one
, until she shows some willingness tt
repair the damage that she did"