San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-10-07
Almost Enough Wasted in
Ruhr to Pay Off
Her Debts.
IS STILL WHINING
Tardieu Points Out Results
of Allied Dis
union.
BY ANDRE TARDIEU.

lSOpyIlbAls ny tut gan ahlOHAo
Paris, Oct. ct is difficult at this
writing to foresee the course events
will take in Germany. Chancellor
Stresemann resigns, A new mandate
is conferred upon the same Strese-
mann by President Ebert. These are
mere surface phenomena. There is a
reality beneath them.
The reality il an increasing antag-
onism between the Right and the Left
parties. Herr Stresemann, leader OF
the Peoples Party, tried u cabinet of
concentration, i'll which the great in
dustries and the Socialists were equal
ly represented. The cabinet agreed in
declaring that the financial situation
of Germany would not permit the
Reich to continue to pay for passive
resistance. But when it came to
measures which resulted from this
declaration disagreement began. The
Right opposed the projects of the So
cialist financial minister, Hilferding.
The Left protested Chancellor
Stresemanns economic projects.
1t seems that the final rupture was
produced over the question of the
eight-hour day. And in Berlin, as in
Munich, the Right element predomin-
ate.
There is only one point on which
the adversaries are united. That h in
attacks upon France. The game is not
new, but it is being accentuated every
day. IL is being said and repeatedly
printed, that it is Frances fault if
Germany is an apparently in extric-
able position.
Not Frances Fault.
Frances fault? Because France re-
fused to grant Chaicellor Stresemann
in exchange for the with
drawal of the passive resistance de-
crees! What satisfaction? Reinstate-
ment of the persons expelled from the
lrea of occupation and those con-
demned for sabotage?
This is pure sophism. In the first
place France and Belgium would have
been stupid at the time when work
was about to be resumed in the Ruhr
to reopen that territory to those who
had disorganized it. And in the sec
Dnd place these concessions would not
have changed the Reich's financial
position, which was the stumbling
block on which the precarious union
VI puItieS nus JUST DTOheH.
Germany created her financial posi-
ton with her own hands-first, by
to pay reparations from
1920 to 1923; afterwards by the meas
ures she has taken since the Ruhr oc-
cupation. The German press brings
information on this subject.
Almost all the papers estimate the
cost of passive resistance at 1,200,-
100000 gold marks monthly, or a
total of about eleven billions.
The telegraph union agency, de-
ending the industrialists, puts the
figure much higher. 1t says that Ruhr
industry received only 20,000,000 gold
marks as government subsidy or only
per cent of the total cost of the pro-
,ram. On this basis, the expense of
passive resistance amounted not to
eleven billions, but twenty-five. L
nave quoted these figures because they
lnswer the foolish things written
lbOut Germany's inability to pay.
Scrutiny Of the PREPARATIONS commits
'ion's accounts of last July show that. |
n cash and goods, Germany has paid !
n three and a half years less than
light billion gold marks. Yet in nine |
months she has been able to throw |
nto the Ruhr gulf a sum estimated !
" some at eleven billions and by |
'thers at twenty-five billions.
Germany Would Not Pay.
Add to this all that Germany has
'aid in various subventions since the
what she has bought |
broad what she has spent developing
Ter railways, canals and mercantile |
marine. and one reaches n minimum
f 10000, 0O0,0 gold marks of which
Germany has Systematically robbed
Ter creditors.
All this goes to show that, if the
lilies had united in 1920 TO compel
Germany to pay, she would have paid
sum five or six times as great as
bat which she has paid. Then there
would have been no necessity for ac-
upying the Ruhr and Europe's recon-
truction would have been facilitated.
The departure of the United States
rom the allies and later Prime Min
ster Lloyd-George's policy made Ger
many hope to escape her obligations,
nd she has spent on resistance what
he should have used to pay her debts.
Germany's default was not bS>ause
he wa sincapable of paying, but be-
ause she would not pay. We are
- ,No1,t,aa1 .nN