Mellon

The Secretary of the Treasury was last week "resting, just resting" at Dinard, on the French coast. But he had a visitor, S. Parker Gilbert, Agent-General for Reparations. And after seeing Mr. Mellon, Agent Gilbert went to Paris, called on Premier Poincare of France. They talked, it was reported, about the long unratified Mellon-Berenger debt-settlement agreement'. Through Agent Gilbert, Mr. Mellon explained that he wished this matter could be settled before the Mellon term at the Treasury is over; that the U. S. Senate cannot very well ratify until it has some notion that the French Parliament is well disposed. But Mr. Mellon got back no encouragement from M. Poincare. There was, he learned, no chance of ratification by the present French Parliament. Mr. Mellon continued to rest. For his part, M. Poincare hoped that the U. S. would wait patiently, in view of the fact that France has not waited for ratification to begin paying her debt on the scale fixed by the Mellon-Berenger agreement. M. Poincare's worry was this: that the U. S. would insist upon collecting the $400,000,000 War stocks debt, due this month, which will be refunded with the rest of France's debt to the U. S. as soon as the Mellon-Berenger agreement is ratified. The difference in annual payments is only the difference between $20,000,000 and $30,000,000 (the Mellon-Berenger scale) but to have to pay out $400,000,000 in a lump would boost the French budget by 20%. Mr. Mellon replied to M. Poincare that he could not, so near the end of his term, undertake the responsibility of waiving the $400,000,000 collection, which had come due through no fault of the U. S. but through France's failure to ratify the refunding. Mr. Mellon continued to "rest."