The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 3 (August 1, 1931)
Eyes Still on France
Eyes Still on France.
It may be that credits have been arranged that will prevent a major bankruptcy; but has this economic accommodation relaxed the political tension? Exchanges between the Paris and the Berlin newspapers indicated the old trouble—a France that would make financial concessions to Germany contingent on reduced German naval building, and a Germany that professed a preference for bankruptcy rather than be put in a new naval strait-jacket. Germany, it was said, would have a second “pocket” battleship even though her pocket be otherwise empty. France was challenged to choose between financial concessions to Germany or German default. The usually reliable Daily Telegraph's diplomatic correspondent even stated, on 24th July, that the British Foreign Minister told the French Premier that if Germany declared a moratorium it would be followed by one in England.