Cash Talk

One of the twelve richest men in Europe is Belgium's picturesque, choleric Emile Francqui. Like the late great Cecil Rhodes, he found his fortune and lost his temper beneath the blazing sun of Africa--Belgian Congo. Three years ago, as Finance Minister, he won world fame by ''saving'' (stabilizing) the Belgian franc (TIME, Nov. 8, 1926). For the past month he has represented Belgium on the Second Dawes Committee which is striving at Paris to revise the Dawes Plan (TIME, Feb. 18, et seq.). Last week a news leak from the secret Committee sessions revealed that of all the Allied delegates only M. Francqui has roughly baited and tried out cross-examination methods on Germany's correct and stiff-necked "Iron Man." famed Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Chief German Delegate and Governor of the Reichsbank. Typical was the reply of Belgian Croesus Francqui, last week, when correspondents impertinently asked whether the Belgian Government is paying his expenses in Paris.

"You parade your ignorance, Messieurs!" said M. Francqui, irate. "Even as a Minister of the Belgian Crown I have never accepted a centime for service to my country."

When Dr. Schacht proceeded to dwell again, last week, on the palpable iniquity of expecting Germany to pay Reparations for 62 years, the five fingers of Croesus Francqui's right hand were observed to tap impatiently on the Committee table. As the Governor paused for breath the Belgian leaped up, fire in eyes.

"But why not 62 years, Dr. Schacht?" he challenged, "Don't you know that Belgium has been paying such a debt for 99 years?"

"Nein!" snapped Berlin's Schacht, "What debt?"

"My country," cried Belgium's Francqui, "is still paying -L-3,000 a year to the descendants of the English Duke of Wellington. That is part of the price of our freedom after Waterloo. The agreement was made 15 years later, in 1830. We have paid -L-297,000 ($1,443,420) in 99 years, and we still pay, without grumbling!"

The present Duke of Wellington celebrated in his Piccadilly home, last week, his 80th birthday. As a grandson of the "Iron Duke" he holds the highest foreign titles possessed by any British peer, is the Netherlandic Prince of Waterloo and a Portuguese Knight of the Grand Cross of the Tower and Sword, and ranks in Spain as a Grandee of the First Class. His 19,200 English acres bring him far more in revenue, of course, than the 99 year-old tribute of little Belgium.

Progress. The experts at Paris were understood to have agreed, last week, that $100,000,000 will represent the working capital of the proposed Bank of International Settlement. If and when established the Bank will act as a corporate trustee for the stupendous volume of German payments--the idea being to place "on a business basis" the present semipolitical functions of the Reparations Commission, which is to be absorbed by the B. I. S. This idea, by the way, appeared more and more clearly, last week, as the brain-child of Owen D. Young, Chairman of the Committee, co-representative of the U. S. with J. Pierpont Morgan. During the week Mr. Young was palpably embarrassed when Frenchmen began calling his Bank of International Settlement, the "Bank of Nations," thus linking it by verbal implication with the League of Nations. In the authoritative Paris Temps, M. Le Senateur Victor Henry Berenger--who negotiated the unratified Mellon-Berenger Franco-U.S. debt settlement-wrote lyrically: "La Banque des Nations is as necessary now as national banks were a century ago, for nations have become mere provinces. If bankruptcies and ruin, which have followed the years 1914 to 1918, are to be avoided, if a new war, even more atrocious than the last is to be avoided, there must be financial understanding and cooperation between nations--between continents.

"The day when this entente is realized will be a day of world confidence and world credit. And from that day when the Bank of Nations is realized, there will be real association des nations." (In French the League is called Societe des Nations often abbreviated "S. D. N.")

The second major step of the Committee, last week, was taken by Dr. Hjalmar Schacht when he reappeared in Paris after dashing over to Berlin "so as to attend my daughter's wedding." Quite apart from discharging his duties at these nuptials, Dr. Schacht conferred long and earnestly with President Paul von Hindenburg and Chancellor Hermann Muller. Accordingly he was able, when he returned to Paris, to mention for the first time a definite annual Reparations sum which Germany offers to pay. Although shrouded in official secrecy this offer was soon known to be 1,500.000,000 gold marks per year ($356,850,000). Promptly the Allied delegates repeated their demand for $625,000,000; and Messrs. Morgan and Young were understood to be suggesting $500,000,000. Thus after a month of cautious trafficking in generalities, the Second Dawes Committee got down to coldest cash.

Criticisms. Europeans grew increasingly fearful, last week, lest what they persisted in calling the "Morgan-Young Bank" should turn out to be a glittering gold and silver U.S. strait-jacket for European finance. The dread lest a controlling interest in the new Bank should be vested in Wall Street would not down, last week, even when Mr. Thomas W. Lamont of No. 23 Wall Street (The House of Morgan) solemnly assured correspondents that such fears are baseless.

Unconvinced German cartoonists and lampoonists cartooned and lampooned the U. S. delegates. The Paris editions of the London Daily Mail screamed: "Deathblow to World Bank! European Nations Against U.S." Asked the Echo de Paris, in pompous fashion: "Are we not in the presence of an ambitious enterprise on the part of American business men who are seeking to impose their hegemony?" Even in Manhattan a few hard words were said by President Charles E. Mitchell of the National City Bank, a gentleman whose level eyes can sparkle with a very frosty glint. According to Mr. Mitchell the U. S. market is in no condition to absorb an issue of German Reparations Bonds, such as is contemplated by the Paris sponsors of the Bank of International Settlements (TIME, March 11). On the other hand, it appeared last week that Governor Montagu Collet Norman of the Bank of England is solidly behind the Bank; and the financiers of London's "City" will follow him, just as Wall Street may be expected to surge along in the wake of the U. S. delegates at Paris.