Vaporings. Since January last, when the experts designated by the Reparations Commission began their secret deliberations, mankind has been pestered with mad, wild guesses on the part of neurotic journalists who have professed to have unimpeachable information regarding the unvoiced thoughts of each individual expert. Alas, this harmless mental vaporing is now démodé! Last week the experts presented their reports to the Reparations Commission which published them.
First Situation. The complex reparations tangle has been bound up closely with U. S. foreign policy. In December, 1922, U. S. Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes made a speech— which was soon forgotten. Last October U. S. Ambassador-to-Britain George Harvey made his valedictory address to the Pilgrims' Society in London and reminded Dame Europa that Mr. Hughes had made a speech and had offered to help her in that speech. The then British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon woke up and cabled to Mr. Hughes to ask if he really had made a speech offering to help Europe. His motive was to bring pressure to bear on France. Mr. Hughes replied in the affirmative, but made four conditions to a prospective Economic Conference:
1) That Germany must not be relieved of her responsibility for the War or her just obligations.
2) That the findings of the Conference should be advisory and not binding on the interested Governments.
3) That the question of the Allied debts to the U. S. should not form the subject of any discussion.
4) That the questions involved cannot be finally settled without the concurrence of the European Governments directly concerned, which was the diplomatic parlance for "France must be represented."
After a fortnight of bickering France poleaxed the conference idea by restricting its scope, or, in the words of Mr. Hughes, by making it "wholly futile and useless."
Second Situation. It appeared that the prospect for an international conference was as dead as mutton when, a few minutes before its demise, Premier Poincaré of France suggested (through the Reparations Commission) the formation of two committees of experts from representatives of the Allied Powers and unofficial representatives from the U. S. All international obstacles having been removed and at least temporary unanimity having been established between the Allies, Louis Barthou, Chairman of the Reparations Commission, invited the various financial and economic experts from the interested European countries and the U. S. to become members of the two committees.
The Report. In January the two committees began work. Now they have presented their reports.
No. 1 Committee (Chairman Charles G. Dawes of Chicago), whose task was to stabilize German currency and balance the German budget," recommended: