The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-26
DATE OF EXCHANGE |OF RATLF ICATION
 DEPENDS ON SPEED
 ALLIED MISSIONS
View of Germans Is That It Will Take Two Weeks to Verify Figures of Float
 ing Tonnage De- manded
By Associated Press

Paris, December 25-The final date of the repeatedly postponed exchange of rat ffications of the treaty of Versailles now depends upon the speed with which the allied missions in Germany can eerify the German figures of available floating dock tonnage demanded by the allies as compensation for the sinking of the. Ger man warships at Scapa Flow. The Asso- ciated Press was informed to this effect Today at the headquattersN of the Ger- Nan peace delegates.
 baron von Lernsner head of the Ger kian Representatives., said he thought this would take at least fortnight, if not longer.- in view of the difficulties. of t ansportation in Germany and the detail involved in verifying the figures
 "A decided misunderstanding is sarefAsct- ed in the Paris press dnrirg the past two days regarding my protected trip 10 Der lin which subsequently abandoned, he said. My object was to hurry rather than delay. the putting of the Versailles treaty into effect. From Monday night until Wednesday afternoon at o'clock l was deprived of any communication. with my government by either telegraph or telephone, Tn consequence of which Berlin had no knowledge of the entente note Or Of a verbal communication slyen on this subject by M. Dutasta, secretary of the peace conference until this morn ing sss
 ANXIOUSLY AWAI PEACE
 'I thought that a trip to Berlin and verbal explanation of the situation to tho government would facilitate matters. The inference by the French papers that the German government wanted to delay the exchange of notifications is absolute ly unsounded. We want nothing more than effective restoration of peace.
 Peace means the repatriation of our soldiers, prisoners in France. who are obliged to spend another Christmas in captivity, though hostiIities have been suspended for more than a year.
 ''The fact that Herr von Sinlson ar rived in Paris last Sunday to start ne gotations for putting the treaty into ef- feet proves that we had no intention to delay matters
 ''Regarding the entente note. Baron von Lersner said its tenor surprised him, hs it seemed so little in accord with the progress of the negotiations.
 The Paris press he said, "even an nounced our readiness to deliver over all the harbor materiaf we could spare with1z cut endangering our economic existence as compensation for the Scapa Flow sinkings, and forecast an early agree ment on this question. If we did not get that far, it was not our fault Our experts have not been asked to talk the matter over since a week ago.
 Baron von Lersner asserted that ac- cording to verbal communication of M. Dutasta at the time of the delivery of the note. the entente made a diminution fin the port tonnage demanded, conditional upon verication of Germany's claim that the entente estimates of the harbor ma terial available were erroneous.
 REPORTS UNFOUNDED
 'T want to say in this connection" he continued, that the statement in the French press that we were disloyal and gave out wrong figures on this tonnage is absolutely unfounded. This the investi- gation would prove I promised M Du- tasta to ask my government to give all facilities for such investigations, and have no doubt that they will be accord cd at once.
 We both agreed that it should be pos sible in short time to verify our srare- nients and come to a definite agreement regarding harbor materials to be deffv- cred by Germany l hope that our expectations soon will be fulfilled. and that peace win finally be put into ef feet"
 After the chief of the German delega- tion had informed M Dutasta that he drought it advisable to go to Berlin, com munication by special wire was restored according to the information given out Sat the headquarters of the German dele gation, and it was decided to telegraph tho note and verbal communication which, taking into consideration the time for coding, transmission and decoding could not come to the knowledge of the
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