To Avert Failure

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 749, 23 August 1929, Page 9

To Avert Failure

LAST EFFORT AT THE HAGUE Private Parleys Resumed GERMANY DEMANDS TO PAY LESS (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 10 a.m. „ THE HAGUE, Thursday. AFTER a meeting of the six Powers, it was announced that private conversations would be resumed in a last effort to avert failure of the Reparations Conference. The meeting adjourned till Friday afternoon. France, Italy, Belgium and Japan have completed proposals largely fulfilling Britain’s demands, at Germany’s expense.

Everyone who is in close touch with the Reparation Conference is pessimistic. It is regarded as practically certain to end at the latest on Saturday in publicly acknowledged failure or in an indefinite adjournment. The gravity of the situation was shown on the faces of the delegates after the plenary session held on Thursday evening. As to what transpired at that meeting the closest secrecy is being observed. It is known that Dr. Gustav Stresemann, German Foreign Minister, gave lengthy details of Germany’s difliculties and demanded that she should be told how much, when and to whom she must pay reparation. Dr. Stresemann contended that as Germany was in no way responsible for the disagreements among the creditor nations she should in any case be allowed to begin making reduced payments under the Young plan on September 1. The German Budget, he said, had been framed in the expectation of the adoption of that plan. If the German Government now had to increase the payments to the level of the Dawes scheme it would be deM. Aristide Briand, French Foreign Minister, and Mr. Snowden, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, are both said to have expressed the view that the Dawes scheme cannot be abolished until the Young plan has been adopted. For the first time thoughts are now turning to the arrangements that will be necessary in the event of the final breakdown of the conference. A French correspondent, writing to the London “Daily Telegraph,” says the creditor Powers are beginning to

realise that their quarrel over the division of the reparation payments may endanger the very existence of those payments. RHINELAND EVACUATION WITHDRAWAL MAY BEGIN IN SEPTEMBER Times Cable LONDON, Thursday. “The Times” says tentative arrangements have been made for the withdrawal of the British troops from the Rhineland as soon as the Government can give the order. Conversations are proceeding- and it is hoped to begin the withdrawal in September. The Government wishes the evacuation to take place at the earliest moment possible, preferably in a complete form l-atber than in stages. BRITISH DENY REPORTS German newspapers yesterday afternoon gave great prominence to a report alleged to have eihanated from British official sources, to the effect that the British War Office had instructed the commander of Britain’s troops in the Rhineland to prepare to begin to evacuate the occupied zones on September 1. British officials at Wiesbaden, however, denied having received any such instructions. Also it has been reported that Belgian troops are to replace the British forces at Wiesbaden. This caused the Mayor of that city to telegi-aph to the German Foreign Minister, Dr. Stresemann. urging him to prevent it.