(4 of 6)
The committee did succeed in agreeing on the nature and functions of the proposed international bank of settlement (TIME, March 11, 25), and at the very worst, that notable achievement, set forth in a voluminous report, will crown the labors of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Young. Said a member of the Japanese delegation when things looked blackest last week, "I am deeply sorry for our chairman. Mr. Young has done everything a man could possibly do to make for success. It is a shame that his wonderful work should be branded with defeat. He deserved something far, far better!" Allied Bulls Baited. The offer made by Dr. Schacht, which seemed to brand FAILURE upon all concerned last week, was in fact a pair of alternatives. The Allies could take their choice, and in either case they would get 15 billion dollars over 37 years. The first offer (which so enraged the French and British that they almost for got there was a second) provided that if Germany were granted "access to colonial raw material," preferential tariff treatment from the Allies, and "economic communi cation with the detached province of East Prussia, then the Fatherland would pledge unconditional payment of the 15 billion dollars. The second offer provided for pay ment of the same amount but was conditional and so drawn as to provide even more protection for Germany than that country already receives under the "transfer clause" of the Dawes Plan. In fairness to Germany it must be remembered that the Fatherland was stripped of colonies after the War, and thus deprived of raw materials which would very materially have assisted debt payment. It is conceivable that in German East Africa alone there may eventually be found enough gold, copper, coal and oil to pay the whole reparations bill. It is but natural that Dr. Schacht should cast eyes upon these resources, that he should remember East Prussia, now cut off from Germany by the "corridor" which Poland was given to connect her with the sea. On the other hand the "Iron Man" might have had common sense enough not to wave two red rags before two bulls. That was exactly what he did by so much as mentioning the "corridor" to France (friend of Poland) or alluding to "colo-nies" in the presence of Britain (which holds East Africa as a mandate). Not only did Dr. Schacht render the Allied delegates speechless with indignation, but he antagonized the U. S. representatives, who pride themselves on being "business-men" and who grew quite heated in assuring correspondents that they would not— no never!—be dragged into a "political" wrangle. Germany's representative had, moreover, displayed the God-given ungraciousness for which he is famed even in Berlin. A breakdown of the negotiations was per-haps inevitable, but it came suddenly and at a particular moment chiefly because of personal animosity stirred up by the "Iron Man." He himself left the session at which the "break" was said by everyone else to have occurred in his usual frame of mind, remarking: "We have been checked, that is all." Not until the bulls he had red-flagged came snorting forth was the situation realized. In Prussia, heads come square and hard—so much the worse for Germany. Death of Baring. Sorely and righteously angry in his quiet, aristocratic way, John Baring, Baron Revelstoke, rode