THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1924. THE LONDON AGREEMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19259, 25 August 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1924. THE LONDON AGREEMENT.

While the results of the London Con ference represented a groat achievement in preparing the way for the operation of the Dawes plan for the settlement of the reparations problem, there is still an clement of uncertainty about the acceptance of the agreement by all the countries that arp vitally concerned in it. Doubts will exist on this score until the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have expressed their opinion of M. Hcrriot’s work in relation to tho agreement, and until the Deichstag has decided whether or not it shall endorse Dr Marx’s acceptance of the Allies’ proposals. In respect of the majority upon which he is able to depend in the French Chamber M. Ucrriot is in a somewhat delicate position, but although the supporters of M. Poincare on tho one hand, and the Communists on the other, have been finding in the Premier’s speech relating to the agreement an opportunity for obstructive tactics, nothing has occurred to suggest that the agree-

ment will not receive the approval of the Chamber. The position in the Ileichstag is less promising. Dr Marx and his Government are not meeting with any ready acceptance of tho London Agreement. Trouble is being created, as was to be expected, by the German Nationalists, who with their dreams of “revenge'’ are not. in sympathy with the Dawes plan for a settlement. Tho Nationalist Party in the Reichstag has adopted a resolution, demanding inter alia the immediate evacuation of the Ruhr, and that is interpreted to mean that it will oppose such legislative measures as must shortly be introduced to give sanction to the proposals contained in the Dawes report. The Nationalists are very strong in the Ileichstag, for their party received a considerable addition as a result of the election in May, and they can count upon the support of subsidiary parties of more exclusive designation. Their election campaign was waged on an anti-Entente and antiDawes Report platform. In June the Reichstag expressed confidence in the Marx Government by m vote of 247 to 183, after a vigorous defence by Dr Stresemaun of the Government’s acceptance of the Dawes Report. The position is now altered in that the issue is the Government’s acceptance of the London Agreement. It is questionable whether the middle parties—the Social Democrats, the Centre and the People’s Party—are powerful enough to carry the “Dawes Bills” against the opposition of the reactionary element, and a dissolution of the Reichstag and another general election may be the outcome. An election in such circumstances would be tantamount to a plebiscite upon the acceptance or rejection of the Dawes scheme and of its operation in accord ance with the arrangements formulated at the London Conference., Apparently tho Government can look for no help from the Communists, who number between sixty and seventy in the Reichstag, and are in fact stronger than the so-called People’s Party. The Chancellor was not exaggerating the importance of the issue when ho declared that the Reichstag was faced with a terrible responsibility, and that “its decision would be a blessing or a curse to Germany.” It is possible that the dissolution of the Reichstag, as it is constituted at present, and the reference of the question of the fate of the London Agreement to the electors of Germany, may constitute the best method of settling the issue. It is difficult to believe that the German people as a whole would not in that event show their sympathy with the Marx Government by returning a Reichstag favourable to the Agreement. But, of course, this would involve delay and the prolongation of state of affairs which is harmful to Germany, as the Germans themselves have pleaded, and harmful to Europe as well.