"Lightning Diplomacy"

Lunch time in Geneva is breakfast time in Washington. One day this week, while President Hoover was quaffing his breakfast coffee, Swiss waiters with flying coattails rushed a champagne lunch up to the suite of Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald in Geneva's swank Hotel Beau Rivage. Cheerful Host MacDonald and guests representing the U. S., France, Germany and Italy, had something to celebrate. They had reached a formula for bringing Germany back into the Disarmament Conference, which the Fatherland quit last September, and they had signed a joint three-point declaration which all agreed was "extremely important."

Guest Norman Hezekiah Davis, Democratic handyman of President Hoover abroad, shared with Host MacDonald the chief honors of having brought Guest Baron Constantin von Neurath, the German Foreign Minister, around from a truculent to a co-operative attitude. When the pallid, pompous Baron reached Geneva last week he carried a proposal for increasing Germany's "defensive armaments'' which struck Messrs MacDonald and Davis as an "alarming document." These proposals they had managed to put on ice.

The Italian guest, Baron Pompeo Aloisi, and French War Minister Joseph Paul-Boncour had brought to nothing Mr. Davis' hopes that, after his talk with Premier Mussolini in Rome and his numerous talks with Premier Herriot, France and Italy might adhere to the London Naval Treaty. They agreed to nothing of that sort. Also scrapped was the so-called "Davis Plan." Mr. Davis had proposed to disband the present Disarmament Conference "before Christmas" with a treaty consolidating gains thus far made, and to create a Permanent Disarmament Committee which should function down the ages. All that went glimmering. Mr. Davis, a sporting loser, raised his glass at Mr. MacDonald's luncheon to toast what all the guests had achieved that morning when they signed their Geneva Declaration:

1) Britain, France and Italy declared that henceforth the Disarmament Conference shall strive to obtain for "Germany and other powers . . . equality of rights in a [treaty] system which would provide security for all nations." On this basis Baron von Neurath promised that Germany will re-enter the Conference when it meets next year.

2) Britain, France, Germany and Italy declared that, as signatories to the Briand-Kellogg Pact "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy," they are ready to sign with other European states a stronger pact renouncing "recourse to force" in settling European disputes.

3) The U. S., which is not a party to the above declarations, joined Britain, France, Italy and Germany in declaring that they will cooperate among themselves to "effect a substantial reduction and limitation of armaments."

This means, the Geneva statement explained unofficially, that before the unwieldy Disarmament Conference of some 60 States meets again a "Big Five" conference of the Great Powers represented at Mr. MacDonald's luncheon will meet, probably in London. Efforts will be made to include Japan and Russia, thus making the affair a "Big Seven" conference. Commented a source close to Norman Hezekiah Davis: "If the seven nations which together possess two-thirds of the world's armaments cannot agree, who can?"

Prime Minister MacDonald. convinced that the Great Powers can agree and blaze the trail to World Disarmament, wound up his champagne lunch with special compliments to Mr. Davis for his "splendid efforts," then dashed from the Hotel Beau Rivage to entrain for Paris and London where debt crises were popping.

Stimson's "No." In Washington, while in Geneva Miss Ishbel MacDonald and her father were boarding their train, the office of Secretary of State Stimson was blue with cigar smoke as he and Secretary of the Treasury Mills puffed over a brand new British debt note delivered early that afternoon by moose-like British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay.

The note declared that "His Majesty's Government have determined to make payment of the amount due on Dec. 15 [$95,550,000] ... in gold," but added the drastic reservation that "in the view of His Majesty's Government" this payment should not be regarded as paid under the Anglo-U. S. debt settlement of 1923 but as a detached "capital payment" carrying no implication as to whether Great Britain will pay the future sums she owes.

To Statesman Stimson's precise legal mind this British reservation seemed so flagrantly impossible (since the U. S. could only accept it by an act of Congress) that he did not even go to the White House, merely talked with President Hoover on the telephone. With Secretary Mills puffing at his side, Statesman Stimson called in a corps of secretaries to whom both men dictated fragments of the necessary "NO" to Britain. Draft after draft was torn up. But by working at top speed the team of Stimson & Mills turned out a final draft which the President was able to approve by telephone before he sat down to dinner. In less than six hours after Sir Ronald Lindsay delivered London's note he had Washington's answer--probably an all-time speed record for diplomacy.

In London the British Foreign Office routed Cabinet ministers from their beds, read them the U. S. note as fast as it came off the wires, flashed off cables to the French towns at which Prime Minister MacDonald's train was scheduled to halt. In Paris Premier Herriot received his first transcript of the note from the local bureau of United Press, raced to meet Scot MacDonald's early train for a conference. Premier Herriot had expected the Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies to recommend French payment to the U. S. on Dec. 15 of the $19,261,432 owed by France, with reservations about the same as those which Britain stipulated. Obviously the U. S. "No" to Britain applied in advance to France.

Home in London, ailing Scot MacDonald went to work on a new note. Again diplomacy sped on greased skids. Ambassador Lindsay at Washington received the new note late at night, called Secretary Stimson for a midnight conference just as he was about to get into bed. The new note was simply a tactful revision of the old. In effect it said: "The U. S. is entitled to regard this Dec. 15 payment in any light it pleases; but we reserve the right to hope that the settlement question will be re-opened and that this payment may then be credited to that account." Most significant was the paragraph:

"It was not. of course, the intention of their [the British] note to touch upon any matter affecting the constitutional position of the U. S. Government. Their note, therefore, should be read solely as related to their own position."

Following the White House conference and Cabinet meeting next morning, Secretary Stimson announced that the U. S. and Great Britain now "understood each other," that the U. S. could accept payment.

"Don't Pay a Cent!" Amid cries of "Don't pay a cent!" massive Premier Herriot faced his Chamber of Deputies, placed blame for the debt muddle squarely upon the shoulders of Herbert Hoover. Said he: "The Hoover moratorium is the cause of all the trouble in which America's debtors are now involved. If the U. S. did not wish to concern itself with the problem of reparations, Mr. Hoover should not have become involved in it." But to M. Herriot blame and honor were not to be confused. Dramatically he reminded the Deputies of "Les Soldats Americains," raised his great voice in booming praise of those "who died for France at Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel, and in the Argonne." From this M. Herriot made a smooth transition to: "Messieurs! The Premier of France has come before you to ask you to honor the thing which is more sacred than anything else --the Signature of France. I personally refuse to dishonor it. ... We must avoid the isolation which surely would follow default." But the possibility of default loomed larger and larger. Premier Herriot, ignoring the Stimson "No" to Britain's first note, prepared a note nearly identical in import, confidently submitted it to the committees on Finance and Foreign Affairs. While they grappled the problems Premier Herriot returned to the Chamber floor in time to hear Louis Marin, aged Nationalist leader, flaying any proposal to make payment. Loud applause greeted M. Marin's shout: "If we pay now, why shouldn't we pay on June 15 and for that matter for the next 60 years? We are not bound to pay because of the Hoover moratorium. We don't want to be dupes! England has a special policy toward the U. S. and has a means of pressure which we have not!"

With indulgent jocularity. Premier Herriot interrupted M. Marin, heckled him gently until the feeble old legislator was stammering, repeating himself, talking in ludicrous circles. The Chamber roared with laughter. For a moment it looked as if the sympathies of the Deputies, who love to be entertained, were shifting towards the Premier. But not for long.

The committees reported on the Herriot note, flatly rejected it, went to work on resolutions of their own calling for outright postponement, come what might.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.