Evening star., 1924-08-24

Continued from First Page)
they could obtain, because a failure
at London meant crash at home.
And the strength of the future
situation of both Herriot and Marx
before their respective legislatures
lay in the fact that once there was
agreement, the opposition would have
to go before the country, taking the
responsibility for upsetting an agree
ment internationally arrived at and
containing obvious economic and
financial benefits, if involving other
sacrifices. Thus. as the situation
now stands. the question has passed
from premiers to parliaments. Be
fore he returned to London after his
brief excursion to Paris. Herriot
agreed that his own signature should
not bind France until it had been
submitted to a legislative plebiscite.
Either the Chamber or the Senate
and Herriot expects his trouble in
the latter body-may reject the Lon
don agreement, and until the French
Parliament has passed upon 1t no
real decision at London counts. And
the same may be said for the German
Reichstag.
In facing Parliament, however,
Herriot has certain weapons, not the
least of which is the immediate finan-
cial advantage for France as re-
suit of bankers loans, and to this
Is added the fruits Of long negotia-
tions between Germans and French
men in the matter of economic set
Elements. But the real asset is the
promise of the British to attend a
new international conference at
which interallied debts will be con-
eidered. This means in fact that the
british have agreed to go to confer
ence with their European debtors,
France, Belgium and Italy, and mere
agreement implies, if it does not in
sure, a British readiness to consider
the matter from the point of view Of
very large reductions.
Debt Conference Vital.
My own judgment is that Herriot
WIN get his London agreement past
the French Parliament, if at all. and
chances favor it, because he has OBJ
tanned this British pledge. In all
probability, too, this pledge at least
commits the British to take up again
the Bonar Law offer, which antedated
the Ruhr occupation and amounted to
a British agreement to ask from her
continental allies no more in pay
ment for debts than the sum which
would bridge the gap between what
Germany must pay Britain and what
Britain is paying the United States
In any event, successful as was the
London conference. it must be recog-
nized that once more it's main imme-
diate consequence was to insure still
another international meeting More
over, London provided no solution
and dealt with only one relatively
minor angle of the European prob
lem, for it did not go beyond estab-
.:shing the amount Germany could
pay annually when she had put her
house in order and the way she could
pay Reparations will not be dis
posed Of, quite obviously, until the
main question of the sum total Ger
many is to pay is settled, and this
in reality means deciding how long
Germany must pay the annual sum
fixed in the Dawes report
In the new conference which is now
to come this question may be dis
cussed along with that of debts. be-
cause it is patent that If Britain's
allies are to pay her the difference
between what Germany pays and
she pays America. and she is tC
pay America for more than so years,
much depends upon how long Britain
will collect from Germany. 1t would
seem that in the end the American
debt settlement with Britain will be
the basis of the continental contracts;
that is to say, that Germany will be
bound to pay Britain and the other
creditors over period coinciding
with that in which British payments
to the United States are to continue
that is, between so and 20 years.
To Discuss United States Debts,
At the forthcoming conference on
debts the United States will not be
represented, but the subjects of the
American debts will be discussed for
patent reasons. Assuming that the
United States continues to insist that
her loans to her wartime associates
be paid in full, we have this situation
Germany will pay to Britain under
the Dawes plan $132.000.00O annually,
which Britain will turn over to
America along with some $50,000,00
more which will come out of the
French and Italian share of German
separations. Germany will pay to