The Washington times., 1921-04-23
S|MONS SEEKS
SLIDING SCALE
Teutons Will Request Indem-
nifty Payments to Allies Fixed
Annually by Court.
BY FRANK e. MASON.
IuteruatIOpaIN Nevs Service,


BERLIN, April 23.-An elastic"
reparations total, to be decided
from year to year by an interna-
tional "board of appraisal" will be
suggested in Germany's reply to
President Harding, which is to be
dispatched to Washington at noon
today and to be announced in the
Reichstag this afternoon.
FEATURE OF PROPOSALS..
The International News Service
learns that this is the outstanding
feature of the new proposals finally
agreed upon bysSthe leading German
statexmen sftSr eoaferences which
iasted~ throughout the night and
Well into this morning.
In the meantime the tentative
total which Germany will offer to
pay is Understood to be far from
the total demanded at the Paris con-
ference but much larger than that
which was fixed at the recent London
conference.
The offer OF this tentative total. II
Is believed, will be "amplified" by a
clause providing that the total be
made a variable factor" Germany
agreeing to pay sum to be decided
annually by the judgment of an in
ternational appraisal board in ac-
cordance with the progress of Ger
many's industrial recovery.
WILL MEET LEADERS.
DR.. Walter Simons, the foreign
minister, and Chancellor Fehrenbac ch
are scheduled to meet the party
leaders shortly after noon TO in
form them of the text OF the docu-
ment.
Germany's leading statesmen
worked throughout the night over the
note. Thoroughly aware that it's
text and tenor are bound to have a
decisive effect not only upon the rep
arations question, but upon the whole
future of the Republic. and indirectly
of all Europe. Or. Simons and his
colleagues in the cabinet bent their
energies in herculean efforts to map
out proposition which President
Harding will feel justified in for
warding to the allies.
The foreign minister is expected to
read the reply to the American pres
ident in the course OF his address in
the Reichstag this afternoon. He
violent attacks in the conservative
press. which is showering epithets
upon him ranging from "weakling"
to "traitor"
APPEAL TO PEOPLE.
The liberal organs, on the other
hand. are frantically appealing to all
Germans to rally solidly behind the
foreign minister and the government
as a whole in this. Germany's great
est crisis since the pre-srmistice days.
;, "Of all our mistakes In the repara-
tons question" says the Berliner
Tageblatt. "the refusal to cooperate
with DR. Simons at this moment Is the
most stupid. 1t cannot fail to impress
the world with Germany's obstinacy
and stubbornness."
Some of the organs OF reaction. with
their defiant. uncompromising edito-
rails, give the neutral reader the i'm
preston that they think Germany is
still master OF the western front and
in possession of Belgium, as she was
In 1917, instead OF being, as she ac-
tually Is, threatened with immediate
military measures by France and her
allies which IL carried out woul1
strike at her very existence.
sIMONs ON TRIAL.
At meeting of party leaders the
demand of the reactionaries for the
Immediate ousting of DR.. Simons was
rejected. The leaders agreed to give
him two weeks in which to settle the
crisis.
The Pritish envoy Is said to have
emphasized that the new German Of
fer must reach Hythe in time to pre-
French military program.