GERMANY’S SURRENDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18294, 11 July 1921, Page 6

GERMANY’S SURRENDER

ELEVENTH-HOUR DECISION. THE DEBATE IN THE REICHSTAG. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 17. Nows comes from Berlin that hnlf_ an hour niter tli? clocV.H had sounded the hour which marked the passing oa tho 50th anniversary of the day when, nt. Frankfurt, the treaty of peace was signed between a victouous Germany and a defeated France —Germany at last bowed her head to the victorious Entente-. Bv a majority of iG in a. House of 307 the Reichstag accepted the Ultimatum. “It was a sullen last-minuto surrender,” says a Berlin correspondent;, " after a debate marked mainly by apologetic despair on the side of fhc Government and wild recrimination by its opponents. Of the various parties acceptance was supported by the Centre, Democrats, and Socialists, and rejection by the Nationalists, People's Party, and Bavarians.’’ NEW ''YES" GOVERNMENT.

The new "Yes” Government, as it has been called, had cnly been brought together half an hour before the assembly. The coalition is composed of Centre, Democrats, and Majority Socialists, with Dr Wirth. Catholic and Professor of Philosophy, as Chancellor and Acting Foreign Minister, until such time as someone not yet. discovered is willing to take that thankless post. It differs from the old coalition in tho presence of Socialists and the absence of the Peoples Party, and it resembles it in that a Minority Government is dependent for its continued existence on the benevolent'’neutrality of the Independent Socialists and Bavarians. That. Germany has escaped tho irretrievable di&aatey involved in the rejection of the Ultimatum is owing, first, to the determined attitude of tho Socialists, and, next, to the willingness of the Catholic Centre- to take its share in the onus cf surrender.

It is recorded that tho Democrats wavered . > the last, moment, and the Nationalists I 1 '..'‘d defiance from tho first. From tho

tp; no one expected anything else, and lavings are undeserving of much conciderotion. But judgment must be passed on the so-called People's Party, composed chiefly of industrial magnates. It was they, under Herr Simms, ’'-ho played a most unworthy part, and who jeopardised tho whole future of the country.

GERMANY’S REPLY. Herr Sthamcr, Gorman Ambassador, vfho was commissioned to notify Mr Lloyd George of Germany’s eleventh-hour capitulation, remained at Do.vning street only a few minutes, end the interview was confined to an exchange of courtesies. ’lh? reply, which was read in the House of Commons on tho same day, is brief. The Gorman Government is resolved:

(1) To carry out. without reserve or condition, their obligations as defined by tbo Reparation Commission.

(2) To accept and to carry out, without reserve or condition, the guarantees in respect of those obligations prescribed by the Reparations Commission. 13) To carry out, without reserve or delay, Ihe measures of mditavy, naval, and aortal disarmament, notified to "the German Government by the Allied Powers in their Note of January 29, 1921. these overdue being completed at onoe and the remainder by the prescribed dates. (1) To carry cut without reserve or delay the trial of the war criminals, and to execute the oilier unfulfilled portions of the Treaty referred to in the first paragraph of the Note of the Allied Government.! of May 5. WHAT ACCEPTANCE IMPLIES.

Germany’s acceptance means that she has a creed to pay £6.690.000,000, a.nn a further .-C150.000.000 (the. amount of the Belgian debt to the Allies), in three series of Hondo, to be delivered by November 1, 1921. These bonds are guaranteed by the whole of the assets and revenue of the German Empire. Until they are redeemed Germany will pay each year £100,000,000, and a sum equivalent to 26 per cent, of the value of her exports. The export tax has been calculated by Mr Lloyd George to bo worth £250,009,000 a year. An Allied Commission will sit in Berlin to supervise tho collection. The first payment is duo on June 1, when the Allies should receive £50,000,000 in gold.