Economic and financial section > Economic and Financial Commission

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England has already offered one million pounds sterling to the National Bank of Greece on
condition that these funds be paid over to the Commission.
The Finance Committee has again given attention to the Albanian question. Last year, that
State claimed the benefit of the application of a general Resolution of the Assembly concerning
technical advisers, by requesting that a financial adviser be appointed, to be entrusted with the
task of giving his opinion upon general questions of an economic and financial nature. The Finance
Committee was instructed to seek a man capable of carrying out this delicate task. It submitted
the name of M. J. D. Hunger, a Dutchman, to the Council, and this proposal was accepted. The
Committee also drafted the clauses of a contract between the financial expert and the Albanian
Government. M. Hunger took office in the month of June and, at the last meeting of the Finance
Committee in September, he stated his views as to the future development of Albania, advocating,
in agreement with the Albanian Government, the constitution of a Bank of Issue. The Finance
Committee approved this step, and, at the request of M. Hunger, prepared, in co-operation with
him, an organic draft law intended to serve as a basis for the statutes of the future bank.
That is a most interesting enterprise. A young country, having no note issue, is to have its
first bank constituted and to see credit, until then practically unknown within its borders, estab¬
lished in the form which is usual in Western Europe.
The problems raised by the financial situation of the Free City of Danzig are of quite a different
nature. In this case, it is not a question of a newly-formed State; Danzig, on the contrary, has
reached a very advanced stage of economic, industrial and commercial development. For two
reasons, however, its financial situation is difficult, the first being the heavy charges imposed on
it by the Treaty of Versailles-; the second, and the more important perhaps, is the collapse of the
German mark, the only legal currency at present in circulation in the territory of the Free City.
In the first place, the Danzig Senate asked the Finance Committee to assist it ir issuing a
loan of 500,000 gold marks, to be used by it as working capital, for the Treasury was continually
in difficulties owing to the depreciation of the mark. The Finance Committee asked the Council
to approach the Conference of Ambassadors and the Reparation Commission with a view to
persuading these bodies — which were creditors of Danzig — not to oppose the issue of the loan.
As a result of the steps taken by the Council, the Conference of Ambassadors and the Reparation
Commission both made statements which met the desires of the Finance Committee. In addition,
the Free City of Danzig was granted a moratorium for one year.
But the monetary situation of Danzig has been growing more and more critical with the col¬
lapse of the German mark. In 1922, the Committee had already recommended the Senate to adopt
some monetary unit other than the German mark. In July 1923, the Senate at last recognised the
wisdom of this advice, and submitted for consideration of the Finance Committee a plan of reform
based on the adoption of a new currency, which should have a definite relation to the pound sterling.
The Committee discussed the question at length. It did not lose sight of the close legal and business
relations existing between the Free City of Danzig and Poland. Under its auspices, negotiations
of a semi-official character took place between the representatives of Danzig and of Poland.
The Committee gave them its views upon the essential points of a monetary reform at the same
time as it communicated them to the Council, and I am glad to inform you that these negotia¬
tions resulted in the signature of an agreement.
We sincerely hope that this agreement will lead to the establishment in the Free City of
Danzig, and, later, in Poland itself, of a stable currency, one of the primary conditions for the
development of a country.
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The statement which I have just made, together with those of M. Ador and M. van Eysinga,
will, with the help of the documents which have been distributed to you, give you a comprehensive
view of the activity of the Finance Committee during last year.
The President of the Council has, however, reminded us, in opening the Fourth Assembly,
that the greatest of all problems within the economic and financial sphere has been outside the
competence of the League, and has remained unsolved. He added that, while this great unsettled
dispute weighs upon the economic life of Europe., the work of the League in every sphere of its
activity must necessarily be limited. This is a statement of which the truth is specially appre¬
ciated by the Financial Committee. The application of the piinciples of the Brussels Conference
finds in almost every case its greatest difficulty, sometimes an insuperable one, in the continued
uncertainty as to reparation payments. While this uncertainty remains, the work of the Financial
Committee must necessarily be both restricted and impeded. As soon as it is removed, this
work will increase in range and in the fruitfulness of its results.
Meanwhile, the work done and in progress, even under the handicap of this great obstacle,
for Albania, for Greece, for Danzig and, above all, for Austria at least gives some indication of
what may be expected when this handicap is removed.
The League of Nations has now at its disposal a body of experts composed of the most com¬
petent men in the whole world. These men have examined a wide range of problems, the study
of which, added to the knowledge of financial problems that they had acquired in their own coun¬
tries, has given to their experience an international character that is of great service to them in
the performance of their duties. Moreover, these men of different nationalities have been working
together for some years, have learnt to know each other, and have formed relations that are
highly useful in the delicate negotiations with which they are sometimes entrusted.
The future has doubtless heavy tasks in store for the Committee.