Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/239

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

what he endured in the war he is tolerably well off."

Mr. McKenna went on to show that since Germany and Great Britain were by far the greatest exporters of manufactured and partly manufactured goods before the war, the brunt of the competition which her indemnity effort would produce would fall upon our trade, and suggested that in order to avoid the grave damage to us that would be involved by Germany's meeting her obligations under the Reparations scheme, Germany should be required to send to this country and to France and the rest of the Allied countries, to each according to its requirements, articles such as coal, timber, potash and sugar, all of which she produces in large quantities. He admitted, however, that by these means nothing like the agreed figures of the indemnity figure could possibly be paid, and did not explain why France should be expected, because we did not like the prospect of fierce trade competition, to reduce her demands upon Germany. Indeed there can be little doubt that the frankness with which the effects of the indemnity payment were discussed here in the light of its expected damage to British trade, must have been one of the reasons why France later on decided to take a line of her own in dealing with Germany,