Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-08-10
COLLECTING E
DEBTS

NUR readers no doubt have seen
~ in the cable dispatches that
France has refused the request OF
Germany for a reduction in the
monthly payments on account OF
debts due French citizens and on
default of Germany in the last pay
ment the French government con-
fiscated the property of $50 Ger
mans in Alsace-Lorraine and ex-
PEELED them from that province.
The statement comes from Paris
that this process of settlement will
be repeated every month that a
German default is made.
In one way this has nothing to
do with the reparation payments,
and in another way it has such re
lation. These payments are private
debts due to French citizens by
citizens of Germany. Under the
terms of the Versailles treaty the
German government vas to assume
responsibility for such private
debts of its citizens and pay them
off at the rate of ten million dol
lars a month. As there is only
600, 900 left of this debt it would
be wholly discharged in five
months if Germany kept its pay
ments up. They say that they are
u unable to meet the full payments
any longer and wanted them re-
duced by three-quarters. If that
had been granted it would have
taken twenty months to extinguish
the debt.
We said that while this debt had
no relation to r~eparations in one
sense it had in another. The treaty
provides that while the German
government must pay all the phi
vate debts due from German citi-
zens to French citizens accruing
prior to the outbreak of the war,
Tronchmen are not to pay similar
deb,s to German citizens until all
the indemnities and reparations
called for in the treaty are paid.
This sum due German citizens by
French citizens is held back as a
sort of security for enormous sums
that can never be paid. So the
Germans have a very one sided bar
gain. They must pay their debts
in France in full but not collect
any debts there. This works a
great hardship, for France bought
more from Germany before the war
than she sold to her and the balance
of debts was in her favor.
If France collected the delin-
quent payments last month by con-
f~;scating the property of $50 Ger
man citizens there and sending
them out of the province they
must have averaged about $4,000
each in wealth. If this process is
repeated a few months it will prob
ably take more and more individual
c~onfiscations to make up the ten
millions. 1t is a pretty savage way
TO collect a debt.
OF course the French view is
that Germany is not an honest
debtor and has the intention of not
keeping its engagements and obi
cations and that only drastic meth
DDS will compel her to pay, but
there is something repulsive in the
principle of making the innocent
pay for the wrongful acts of the
guilty, and that is what confisca-
ton of German individual proper
ty il Alsase-Lorraine amounts to.
It is the doctrine of reprisal which
is a savage and barbarian princi-
pie, applied to financial affairs.
1t is based on the old tribal theory
that a wrong committed by one
member of the tribe is the wrong
Of the whole tribe and may be
avenged on any member of the
tribe. Germany itself proceeded on
that theory quite often during the
war. 1t seized hostages and exe-
cuted them because OF alleged
wrongs committed by other citi-
zens of the village from which the
hostages were taken. 1t destroy
ed the property of innocent civil
ians because of alleged wrongful
acts of persons unknown. The saw
age doctrine of reprisal on the in
nocent for the guilt of others was
brought TO France by the Germans
in the first place and evidently has
taken root there. 1t is shocking
to our sense of equity, but there
is nc such consideration as equity
in war, and the hatreds bred by the
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