Economic and financial section > Economic and Financial Commission

[Communicated to the Council, the
Members of the League and the
Delegates at the Assembly.]
26 ' :\
5<
^1924^/
A« 83.1923- n.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Geneva,
September 20th, 1923.
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL COMMISSION
REPORTS AND DRAFT RESOLUTIONS
PRESENTED BY THE
SECOND COMMITTEE.
Rapporteurs :
M. Fernandez y Medina, Delegate for Uruguay.
The Jonkheer van Eysinga, Delegate for the Netherlands.
A. — REPORT ON THE WORK OF THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE.
Rapporteur: M. Fernandez y Medina.
Since September 1922, the work of the Financial Committee has extended over a range of
subjects a part of which is within the province of two of my colleagues on the Second Committee.
M. Ador has already explained the part played in the reconstruction of Austria by the members
of the Financial Committee, both in the preparation of protocols in September and October 1922,
and in their capacity as the Provisional Delegation of the League of Nations, when they carried
out the preliminary work at Vienna pending the Commissioner-General's arrival. M. van Eysinga,
who will deal more particularly with questions affecting the Economic Committee, has detailed
the results of the work undertaken by the Financial Committee on subjects which fell within the
competence of both, such as our collaboration with the International Labour Office on the un¬
employment problem, and the issue of publications by the Economic and Financial Organisation.
I need therefore deal only with the other branches of the Financial Committee’s work.
As you are well aware, all this work is based on the general ideas put forward by the Inter¬
national Financial Comerence at Brussels in 1920.
The duty of the Financial Committee — which, as you will find, it performs most admirably
— is, as far as possible, to give practical effect to those ideas which are known throughout the
world as the “Brussels Resolutions”.
The publications of the Economic and Financial Section, to which M. van Eysinga will refer,
have informed the public of what has been done in this direction.
As you know, however, the Financial Committee’s activities are not confined to the compila¬
tion of statistical reports, however perfect. The memorandum on Public Finance, the memoran¬
dum on Currency, the memorandum on Central Banks of Issue, and the report on the principles
laid down at Brussels undoubtedly constitute valuable material for investigation, but the Com¬
mittee’s chief ambition is to further the practical application of the principles of sound finance.
The work of which I have to speak to you as regards the year 1922-23 falls under two
heads, general and special. Among the questions of general interest which came before its notice,
the Committee, during the past year, without neglecting its enquiry into currency and exchange
problems, which are of primary importance to it, has attempted to further a solution of these rious
problem of double taxation. »
For some years, the public has been feeling the evils of double taxation. From the point of
view of equity, the taxpayers’ interests suffer serious damage from the fantastic proportions
of the rates of taxation applied to the same sources of income in two different countries, while,
from the general economic point of view, there can be no doubt that the free circulation of capital
is hampered by the absence of any international boundary-line for the operation of fiscal tariffs.
S. d. N. 1600 (F.) + 1500 (A.) 9/23, Imp. Kandig.