Evening star., 1923-01-05
NO IMMEDIATE
CATASTROPHE IN PARIS
PARLEY COLLAPSE
Continued from First Page. J

but whether she ever will pay at all.
1t requires to be remembered that the
German government and people re-
gard the treaty OF Versailles. from
TOP to bottom, an outrageous injus-
ttce. They have never felt any sense
of moral obligation to fulfill its terms.
They look upon il as pact of crush
ing oppression, the evasion of which
is not only right, but patriotic
duty. Karl Bergman. the Prussian
financial expert, who has represented
Germany at all the futile reparations
conferences of the past, including
Paris, openly has avowed that until
the treaty OF Versailles is revised"
lock. stock and barrel. the conditions
Germany's conquerors would impose
upon her never can and never will be
lived up to.
SHINES Bar to FuIHlImcnt.
Although men like the late Walther
Rathenau, the fCs'mer German cham
cellor, Or. Wrth, and the present pre-
mier, Wilhelm Cuno, rank as eX-
ponents of the policy of fulfillment,"
the industrial reactionaries like Hugo
SHINES and the militarist die-hards of
the Hindenburg Ludendorf Bern
haTdi school are braZen advocates of q
policy of non-fulfillment. They look
upon the treaty OF Versailles as an
fuence which has predominated over
that OF German liberals of the Ra-
thenau-Wirth- -Cuno type, and which
hitherto has mainly been responsible
for Germany'S systematic policy of
subtc:fuge, evasion and quibble.
Hughes AIlusion Justified.
Secretary Hughes New Haven al
lusion to the politics" in the repara-
gjf t,o
hilt by tho weeks critical develop
mcnts at Paris. elf-interest is ever
the controlling influence of European
statesmen, in London as in Paris. in
Rome as in Brussels. The paramount
politics in the reparations situation is
the ancient European principle of
balance of power" maintained by
Great Britain since Napoleonic times.
The British traditionally have op-
posed the rise on the continent of any
power SO strong that IL could menace
Great Britain's position in Europe.
super-strong France does not fit
in with Britain's me-honored European
scheme. France bound always to be
more or less fearful of a powerful Ger
man neighbor more accords with British
political and military interests. Cate
gorical suggestions along that line have
just been made in the Round Table"
that authoritative British quarterly re-
view, which deals exclusively in imperial
and International affairs. The article
in question specifically discusses
Frances projected mastery of the Ruhr
and deals with the economic and politi-
cal menace such French grip on Ger
many's resources would constitute for
British interests
Two Views In Britain.
The British government has even
more up-to-date incentive for wishing
a strong Germany vts-a-vis France than
the old balance OF power fetish. Bonar
Law asserted in Paris early this week
that Great Britain would gain indus
trialiy and financially through the COM
plete swallowing up OF Germany by an
earthquake, because thus Britain's most
formidable commercial rival would be
abolished. British manufacturers and
workingmen hold a radically different
Idea on that subject.
1t is precisely because they wish
TO retain the valuable German mar
ket for British manufactures that