REPARATIONS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17742, 19 April 1923, Page 9

REPARATIONS.

THE BERGMANN PLAN.

BASIS OF DISCUSSION. (bi cable— pbbsb association—'.australian and k.k- cable associatioh.) . BSRLIN, April 17. Baron Rosenberg (German Foreign Minister), in the Reichstag, announced that Germany had notified the Powers that she believed that the world's future depended on the acceptance of Mr Hughes's proposal. Tho Bergmann plan was the only solution. No German Government would ever permit the neutralisation of the Rhineland. The plan which Dr. Bergmann (tho German financial expert) vainly tried to submit to the Allies' Conference at Paris in December, provided for the German'payment of £1,500,000.000. That was Germany's utmost capacity then, and the Ruhr invasion had since reduced Germany's economic strength and capacity to pay. Yet Germany was prepared to accept the Bergmann plan as the basis of a new discussion. Xo German Government could accept M. Loucheur's plan for a gradual French retirement as payments were made, and the proposal to make the left bank of tho Rhine a Federal State demilitarised under the League of Nations. It would be the, beginning of tho end for Germany. Replying to M. Poiucare's statements at Dunkirk, Baron Rosenberg declared that Germany had only 10Q,000 troops, as the Treaty permitted. [The declaration of the United States foreign policy made by -Mr C. E. Hughes on December 29th contained the suggestion that, if European statesmen were unable to reach an agreement on reparations, men of the highest authority in nuance, in their respective countries, should be invited to confer and make recommendations. These men should be of such prestige, experience, and honour that their agreement upon the amount to be paid, and upon the iinancial plan for working out tue payment, would be accepted throughout the world as the most authoritative expression obtainable. Mr Hughes had no doubt that distinguished Americans would be -willing to serve ou such a commission.]