HKB
VI. (hereafter, for the sake of brevity, called the “Annex deliveries”) in the period expiring on the 1st May 1926, is fixed at a maximum of 7 milliard gold marks.
In regard to the Annex deliveries the Agreement in no way modifies the Treaty provisions under which Germany is credited and France debited forthwith with the value, but special provisions, which are financially the essential part of the Agreement, are made for bringing to reparation account the value of the Agreement deliveries. These special provisions are designed to secure that Germany shall only be credited on reparation account at the time of delivery with a certain proportion of them, and that deliveries not thus accounted for, which may be called “excess deliveries,” shall be liquidated over a period of years beginning at the earliest on 1st May 1926. The provisions themselves are somewhat intricate, comprising, as they do, a series of interacting limitations, and they require some elucidation.
(1) In no case is credit to be given to Germany in any one year for Annex and Agreement deliveries together to an amount exceeding one milliard gold marks.
(2) In no case is credit to be given to Germany in any one year for more than 45 per cent of the value of the Agreement deliveries or for more than 35 per cent if the value of the Agreement deliveries exceeds one milliard gold marks.
The effect of the above is to prescribe that 55 per cent (or, if the Agreement operates successfully, 65 per cent) of the value of the Agreement deliveries as a minimum will be the object of deferred payment by instalments. If the Agreement deliveries reached really high figures, the operation of the milliard limitation would make the carry forward much more than 65 per cent.
The excess deliveries are to be liquidated with interest at 5 per cent per annum in 10 equal annual instalments as from 1st May 1926, subject to certain conditions:—
(1) France shall in no case be debited in one year for Agreement deliveries with an amount which, when added to the value of her Annex deliveries in that year, would make her responsible for more than her share (52 per cent) of the total reparation payments made by Germany in that year.
(2) Agreement deliveries continue after 1st May 1926, with the same provisions for deferred payment. If in any year between May 1926 and May 1936 the amount (not exceeding 35 or 45 per cent) of the value of that year’s Agreement deliveries to be credited to Germany, together with the annual instalment to repay the debt incurred in respect of the period ending 1st May 1926, exceeds one milliard, the excess is to be carried forward from year to year until a year is reached in which no such excess is created by the payment. But in no case shall the amount credited, even if it is less than one milliard gold marks, exceed the limit laid down by the preceding condition.
(3) Any balance with which Germany has not been credited on 1st May 1936 is to be credited to her with compound interest at 5 per cent in four half–yearly payments on 30th June and 31st December 1936 and 30th June and 31st December 1937. But, again, these half–yearly payments shall not be made if the effect of making them would be to exceed the limit laid down in Condition 1 above.
(4) Agreement deliveries continue indefinitely after 1st May 1936, with power, however, to Germany to arrest them whenever the execution of them would result in France owing more than 52 per cent of Germany’s annual reparation payment in respect of Annex deliveries, deferred payments already matured, and the 35 or 45 per cent of current deliveries.
From the above it is to be noted that, while there is a limitation for the first five years of the amount of Agreement deliveries which can be demanded, there is—