SEEKING A NEW BASIS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 12 December 1923, Page 5

SEEKING A NEW BASIS

BREAKING UP OF THE NATION

GOVERNMENT FACING THE

DILEMMA.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRKIHT.) 1 " (PDBUSBED IN THE HUBS.) (Received 12th December, 10 a.m.) LONDON, 11th December. The Cologne correspondent of "The Times" says that the German Government has decided to attempt to re-ar-range the question of reparations on the basis that if a Rhineland ■State is created it must be allowed to organise and administer itself in its own way, and must be freed from the burden of the army of occupation.

It is recognised that there is little hope of preventing the French separating theterritories they now hold. It is also recognised that if the Rhineland and the Iluhr are cut off from Germany the reparation clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and the pacts and promises signed since 1919 are mere waste paper, and must be replaced.

Herein the Germans see the possibility of a new Treaty, and a new estimate of reparations,, and, possibly a genuine peace settlement. The more Germany is broken up, the less she Can pay, and she has now reached the point when the breaking up pjocess is beginning. The dilemma must be faced, and that the German Government has realised it and is prepared to face it makes matters considerably easier.