Impasse

INTERNATIONAL

Impasse

With the experts of the Second Dawes Committee on the verge of reaching an agreement on revising reparations, Dr. Albert Voegler, second-in-command of the German delegation, suddenly resigned.

Optimistic observers of the Paris conference refused to be depressed. It was pointed out that bristle-headed Dr. Voegler was an avowed Nationalist, that he had from the first refused to agree to any payments beyond 37 years, that he was directly responsible to the Ruhr industrialists, who were determined to make no concessions to the Creditor Powers. Optimists felt that Dr. Ludwig Kastl, the German delegate who succeeds Dr. Voegler, would be easier to deal with.

Carefully considered, however, the reparations problem seemed none too healthy. Weeks of negotiations had brought the demands of the creditors and the offers of the Germans within striking distance of each other. Comparatively slight concessions on either hand would bring about an agreement, but it was just these final concessions that seemed last week impossible to obtain.

At the time Dr. Vogler resigned there were four main points at issue:

1) The creditors refused to allow a total suspension of payments in case of a German financial crisis.

2) The creditors refused to liberate German railroads from all control.

3) No agreement could be reached in regard to unconditional payments within the average annual figure of $487,600,000.

4) The creditors insisted on a completion of payment under the Dawes Plan for the year ending January 1, 1930--a matter of some $438,000,000.

Dr. Schacht also demanded political concessions, including the immediate evacuation of the Rhineland and the early return of the Saar Valley. This proposal was greeted with stony silence. Dr. Schacht retired once more to ponder.

The resignation of Dr. Voegler did not at once bring about the warm spirit of co-operation among the German delegation which Parisian optimists hoped for. Dr. Schacht returned from his meditations still truculent. The German delegation, he said, could make no further compromise.

Correspondents of U. S. newspapers returned to their hotels and commenced typing articles for future release, explaining how the delegates of the Second Dawes Committee, although they failed to reach an agreement, did great service by filing complete reports with their governments explaining just what the ultimate claims of the various nations were.