§ 32. Mr. WISEasked the Prime Minister if he can state the tonnage launched from the German shipbuilding yards from January, 1921, up to date; whether the German Government has subsidised the German shipbuilding firms; and are the obligations of the Treaty of Versailles as to shipbuilding being kept?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson)I have been asked to reply. Definite figures are not available as to the tonnage launched from German yards during this year. It is reported that 12 milliards of marks have been set aside for compensating shipowners who lost their vessels as a result of the War, and it is a condition that 90 per cent. of this sum shall be expended in German yards. Up to the present, the power to require Germany to build merchant ships under paragraph 5 of Annex III of the Reparation Section of the Treaty of Versailles has not been exercised by any of the Allies.