§ 48. Mr. CHARLES BUXTONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of expenditure has been incurred by the Reparation Commission, together with the commissions and other bodies subsidiary thereto, from its inception up to the present time?
§ Mr. BALDWINI am informed that the total cost of the Reparation Commission and of its subsidiary bodies from its inception up to 31st December, 1922, the latest date for which information is available, is approximately £2,280,000, namely, £797,000 in 1920, £864,000 in 1921, and £619,000 in 1922. These sums include the cost of the national delegations and of the international staff, of the Committee of Guarantees, of the main office at Paris, and of local offices at Berlin, Essen, Beuthen (formerly at Mährisch-Ostrau), Wiesbaden, Vienna and Budapest. The total also includes about £40,000 in respect of the cost of the Organisation Committee of the Reparation Commission incurred prior to the coming into force of the Treaties. It does not include the cost of the Bureau at Berlin for the liquidation of German war material. The dirty of disposing of such material is not a function with which the Reparation Commission is charged by the Treaty of Versailles, but was assumed by the Commission, on behalf of the Allied Powers, at the request of the Conference of Ambassadors. The cost of the Bureau met out of the proceeds of the sales of war material.