Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1932. WAR DEBTS AND ELECTIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 109, 10 May 1932, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1932.

WAR DEBTS AND ELECTIONS

By her signature of the Young Plan Germany bound herself to the payment of her war debts and reparations by annuities of between £75,00P ; q00 and £100,000,000 for 60 years from the 31st August, 1929. But before two years had passed the Hoover moratorium was found necessary to save her from default, and six months later it became obvious that a scheme which had drastically amended the Dawes Plan must itself be drastically amended or abandoned as unworkable. The opinion of the German Government to this effect naturally did not carry much weight in France, but even the French experts on the Special Advisory Committee appointed to report upon the Young Plan joined in its unanimous conclusion that the collapse of Germany was the only alternative to relief, and that the collapse of Germany would be a worldwide disaster. ~'

Germany's problem, which is largely the cause of the world's increasing financial paralysis, said tho report, necessitates common action, by Governments. It must be treated as a world problem, and not exclusively as a German problem. The crisis has now assumed tremendous dimensions, and if not counteracted further catastrophe is likely. The only permanent hope of restoring confidence is an adaptation of reparations and war debts to meet the neods of the world upheaval. ■ -. ■

Such was the opinion expressed by^the 'experts of Europe and the United States on the condition of Germany and its relation to "the world's increasing financial paraly--sis" in a report which was issued on Christmas Eve, but the recommenda.tions were as vague as the conclusions were startling. The Advisory Committee appealed, to all the/Governments concerned ■ v" ■'■'.-,,■■

tp. reach decisions without delay in' order to awaken new hopes of improvement in the crisis which is oppressing all. countries equally. But the responsibility for advising on the form which those decisionsshould take was evaded on the ground" that this was a matter not for economic experts but for statesmen. The substantial reason for this transparent evasion of a fundamental part of the. Committee's duties was the reluctance of the French experts to give economic advice which would not square with the policy of their Government.:. ..,'

It Is understood on reliable authority, we were told, that the Germans insisted that Germany could not, andwould not, continue to pay reparations, while the French insisted Germany not only could but must. This' left the Committee practically helpless. •■■•.'■ ■"■ •'■ -. !>.-„: -

There were,\ therefore, no specific recommendations, and the same international jealousies which prevented the Committee from going any further prevented the nations from aoeepting Its advice to proceed without delay. ~~"

Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald's comment upon the report was that it showed plainly that, the Governments ought to meet "without a day's necessary delay," and arrangements were put in hand for the holding of a conference at Lausanne to deal with it. The date had been fixed for the 25th January when a storm of resentment was/excited in France by a public statement from the German Chancellor along the same lines as those attributed to the German delegation on the Advisory Committee.

Germany, said Dr. Bruening, Is. unable to pay-her reparations, and her delegates to Lausanne must press for: their total abolition. v ". .--V-

The excitement on both sides drew from Mr. Mac Donald the commonsense remark that it only made' the need for the conference more urgent than ever, but the French interpreted Dr. Bruening's statement that Germany could not pay as meaning that 'she would not pay, and described him as having "torpedoed the Lausanne Conference." Against this view Mr. Mac Donald and Sir John Simon strove- in vain. After vain attempts to save something from the wreck by whittling the' proposal down, first, to a conference of experts and ultimately to a mere tete-a-tete between the British and the French Prime evfen the pretence of a conference had to be abandoned. "The world's increasing financial paralysis" which the Young Plan experts had declared in Decen> ber to be iii a large measure the outcome of the--troubles of Germany, and to demand common action without delay, was to be given another six months' free run. Now that the six months are nearly up and that the 16th June has been fixed as-the date of the Reparations Conference, it is of interest to recall that one of the chief reasons for the long postponement was that Germany had a

Presidential Election due in March and France a General Election in May. And it is of painful interest to note that neither of these elections promises an advantage commensurate with the mischief of the long delay. The notorious weakness with which the instability of a democracy afflicts its foreign policy has never been illustrated on so huge a scale as during the last six months. In June the President of the United States gave the world a great lead with his war debts moratorium, but in December Congress accompanied its ratification of the proposal with a resolution re-affirming the sanctity of the war debts more emphatically than ever. A* distressed world is waiting for another ..great lead, but it must not expect the politicians of the great creditor nation to talk sense about war debts or gold or tariffs until the Presidential Election has been decided six months hence. In Germany's Presidential Election democracy under the lead' of one of the great men of the old order may be said to have held its own very well, but that untimely declaration of Dr. Bruening in January, as well as some previous indiscretions, may be attributed to the need of convincing the electors that Herr Hitler is not the only German leader that can show a bold front to France.

And now the French Government, which was deterred By fear of the electors from balancing its Budget or facing a Reparations Conference, seems to have got its deserts in a manner which promises littler compensation to the world for the long delay in the alleviation of its miseries. M. Tardieu has been decisively defeated, but, according to the Paris correspondent of the "News-Chronicle,"

M. Herriot's- triumph is due to the high cost. of living, unemployment taxation, and the depression. The election was fought on domestic issues which are unlikely to affect foreign policy.

For five months Europe . has been waiting for France, and at the end of it the foreign policy of France is just what it was before. Britain seems to be the only great nation that can face a General Election in a time of crisis _and emerge from it stronger than before and with renewed power to leas the world.