Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1921. AMERICA'S REPLY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 111, 11 May 1921, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1921. AMERICA'S REPLY

The developments of the past week have greatly improved the outlook on both sides of .the, Atlantic. A week ago the American Senate's acceptance of the Knox resolution in favour of a separate peace with Germany, by a majority of more than two to one, had carried the hopes of the Republican irreconcilables to the highest pitch. They were confident that the President had abandoned the idea- of patching up the Treaty of Versailles. They were planning a resolution favouring the withdrawal of American troops from Germany. They even spoke of negotiations \ for two new peace treaties, one witjj Germany and the other with the Allies, as though the bitter wordy warfare that they have been waging against the Allies for nearly two years had really converted them into enemies. But.these vagaries of amateur diplomacy have received a severe check. The irreconcilables have not stampeded Cabinet and Congress as they expected. A "high authority," whose identity has not been disclosed, but who is perhaps the Secretary of State himself, has expressed his dissent from Senator Lodge's advocacy of a separate peace and from th 6 proposal to withdraw American troops from the Rhine. A curt and frigid, not to say severe, reply has beerf" sent to Germany's final appeal to Washington against the Allies' demands. The passing of the Knox resolution by the House of Representatives has been suspended. President Harding and his advisers have stood firm, but the German Government has toppled over. Never since the rejection of the ex-President's policy at the polls six months ago has.1 German-American stock suffered such a slump in th'e\ Washington market.

To-day's news from Berlin, though not official, confirms the previous probability that before Germany's twelve days of grace have expired' her acceptance of tho Allies' reparation demands will be an accomplished fact. Such is reported by the Berlin correspondent of the Daily News to be. the decision of meetings of the Coalition Parties after the Premiers of all the German States. had been summoned to Berlin for consultation. The Junkers are of course raging and the industrial magnates are imagining vain things, but the mobilisation of 400,000 French troops on the confines of the, Ruhr, with the entire concurrence not merely of London but of Washington, is an argument which no possible German Government seems likely^to resist. We may thank the almost incredible folly of Dr. Simons and his colleagues for this promise of a happy issue out of the perils which during the last few months have threatened nothing less than the complete scrapping of the Versailles Treaty. It has hardened up, first, Mr. Lloyd George to the support of M. Briand; then Mr. Asquith to the support of Mr. Lloyd George; and, finally, tho United States to the support of France and Britain. If a democratic Germany had not shown itself as stupid and insolent and intractable in defeat as was Imperial Germany at the height of its power, if a spirit of repentance had been displayed and an offer made which proved that the display was genuine, Britain might have been detached from France and divided against herself, and the German propaganda might have carried all before it at Washington. But a display of the same qualities which gave the Allied and Associated Powers a united front against Germany in the war has united them once more. Instead of being torn to pieces, the Treaty of Versailles is to be enforced at last.

We may be thankful that the change of front at Washington has been dictated by ■ stronger considerations than the requirements of diplomatic propriety, o.' a regard for the susceptibilities of the Powers with which America was associated in the war, or even for their interests. \ Without any weakening in their determination to detach their country as far as possible from European complications, the Republicans realise more clearly than they did in Opposition that Government, especially in its international relations, is not quite th 9 simple matter that Mr. Harding then declared it to be. Too rapid an abdication of her European responsibilities would not expedite the isolation that she desires, but would delay it, and might even postpone it indefinitely. Above all, American business interests, which have been clamouring for peace as their supreme necessity, are able to see that the chaos which an encouragement of Germany's .recent attitude would involve would be a worse disaster than the unsettlement of the last two years and a-half. In a powerful article which he contributes to the April number of the American Review of Reviews, under the title of " Germany Defies Her Conquerors," Mr. Frank H. Simonds, who has been one of the ablest, most consistent, and best-informed champions of the Allies in the United States, supplies a powerful exposition of the'meanihg of

Germany's attitude to the demands of the Allies, and in particular of its bearing upon American interests.

Though in form Gel-many has only challenged the reparation figures of the Allies, the challenge, Mr. Simonds argues, really goes much deeper than that. It is actually "calling into question the right of the Allies to collect not alone reasonable indemnity but any indemnity." "If Germany does not pay she wins the war, so far as France is concerned," says Mr. Simonds; but she will win it against America too. The damages assessed against Germany approximate very closely to the amount of the loans of the United States, and he argues that to write off the one will be to write off -the other also:

We have -at the moment 15,000,000,000 dollars invested in European loans &r credits. Most of this sum will never be repaid unless Germany is compelled to meet tho reparation demands formulated at Paris and reaffirmed at London. We cannot support the German claims that these sums be reduced without agreeing that we shall equally forego our own claims against Europe. After all. it is not Europe, not France or Great Britain, or Italy or Belgium, who is literally holding Germany to ransom. Most, if not all, that Germany can conceivably pay will in the end find its way to our )x>ckets, or to our shores in tlio shape of goods, since of -21,000,000,000 dollars assessed ogainst Germany, a sum no one really expect* that she will pay, two-thirds would be required to meet the present Allied debt to the United States, and Europe must still buy largely, if she can.

Even the Republican "die-hards" should bs able to appreciate this logic. It was Senator Hiram Johnson, if we remember rightly, who, when ' Mr. Wilson was engaged in his final appeal to the country on behalf of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations, vehemently denounced the policy of linking up the United States with "two bankrupt European Powers." But if the only way to get Britain and France to pay their just debts at Washington is to help them to get payment vof Germany's debt to them, even Senator Johnson may be able to tolerate the shady connection a little longer, and to postpone the "gentleman's agreement " which he would like to make with Germany.