FRANCE AND REPARATIONS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,--A note under the heading "France and Reparations " on page 230 of your issue of August 22nd concludes with the formula, " The French taxpayer is clearly not to be asked to relieve the German taxpayer of his obligations." Allow me to say that no German or friend of Germany expects the French taxpayer to do the like. It is not any reasonable taxes which should be lightened, but what is called repara- tions, which seem likely, as is now generally acknowledged, some day to extinguish Germany's life—to the detriment of Europe.
As to the experts who " affirmed Germany's capacity to pay," the juridical point of view may by now in fairness be dropped. It will be remembered that a man of Dr. Schacht's authority resigned on account of the destructive height of the amount fixed, and, further, that a revision of the same, if necessary, was one of the conditions of The Hague Treaty.
By the way, the German Minister of Finances has shown up that the sums already paid to France are a multiple of the whole cost of " reparations " (for damage done).—I am, Altono-Blankenese.
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