FINAL CONFIDENCE SCENES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 6 January 1923, Page 7

FINAL CONFIDENCE SCENES.

LONDON, Jan. 5.

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Express says tlie conference "met at three o 'clock for ah hour. It then adjourned for an hour and a half, and finally broke up at 6.30. It was obvious from the delegates' faces at the adjournment that the end was near.

The conference broke over guarantees. Mr Bonar Law's scheme offered a .moratorium without immediate guarantees, but M. Poincare would not agree to any moratorium without guarantees. The delegation sat face to face with a hopeless situation.

There was a few minutes' silence, everyone recognising that a great crisis in the world's history had been reached, each delegate fearing to speak the fatal word marking the termination of long years of alliance, common suffering, effort and trial. M. Poincare fidgeted and obviously was intensely moved, while Mr Bonar Law, with his eyes on the\ tabic, sat motionless. M.,Poincare broke the silence, proposing an adjournment for half an hour. Mr Bonar Law quickly sought M. Poincare's hand, and all rose and left. s . The Foreign Office issued the full text of a long and closely-argued British reply to the French 'criticisms at the second sitting of the conference, but it throws no light upon the causes of the final. disagreement, which was due to fundamental considerations outlined in Mr Bonar Law's first speech. The reply emphasises that, despite ncr I own liability to America,1 Britain will ! offer to cancel her Allied debts, totalling eleven hundred million sterling, the burden of which the British taxpayer must bear for at least a generation. •