Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-13
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

If it were polite for Washington to
| blurt out the brutal truth about France
these days, some uncommonly plain
| speaking would Sizzle across the Atlantic
to Paris. It's an open secret that the
Hoover administration had to practice
all the Self-restraint at its command to
avoid boiling over during the protracted
| moratorium negotiation. French in
siStence upon trotting out some new
and irritating technically was endless.
An American authority who was in the
thick of things says that France, If
she'd wanted to, could have achieved
every one of her vital objectives in 48
| hours instead of the two and a half
weeks she dragged things out. The re-
suit of her dog-in-the- manger tactics
has only now become fully apparent. AT
! first, 1t simply looked as If the French
were trying to harass the United States
| in retaliation for the chilly deals they
always claim they got at the Washing
| ton and London naval conferences, re-
| spectively in 1921 and 1880. On both
occasions France complained that the
United States and Great Britain fixed
| things up in advance behind her back.
She's long been credited with q gnawing
desire to get even. The Hoover debt
| plan seemed to provide the opportunity.
y
But. as things have developed, the
| French were doing something far graver
than Squaring accounts with the United
States. The delay they caused over the
| moratorium provoked serious repercus-
| sions in Germany Some authorities in
Washington believe the catastrophe
financial situation now confronting the
| Reichsbank is largely attributable to the
| dilatory French maneuvers during the
debt controversy. Nervous Germans, fear
Ing the Hoover scheme was either doomed
or condemned to only partial fulfill
ment, began converting their bank
| holdings into foreign gold currency.
The consequent panicky transfer of
German marks into dollars or pounds
produced frenzied flight of capital
that soon assumed devastating dimen-
sions. Unless ways and means are de-
vised to check it. national bankruptcy
faces the Reich as an almost unacceptable
| fate.
So much having been said for the
| American view OF recent French diplo-
| macy, 1t requires also to be set down
that Washington is not throwing up its
hat in enthusiasm over pressnt-hour
Germany diplomacy. There's a feeling
here that the Berlin government, every
thing considered, could now afford
| without much ado to meet the condi-
tons submitted by the French for a
| big Reich loan in Paris, London and
New York. France, obsesscd by her
| ineradicable fears of a reborn, revenge
seeking Germany calls for political
| collateral against any financial aid to
the ancient foe. Germany must quit
expanding her navy, gag her warlike
veterans organizations and postpone
tariff union with Austria. Hindenburg
and Bruening say they'll resign first,
| rather than submit to such humiliating
terms. 1t is very definitely thought in
Washington that in view Of the sup
plant role the Germans are now en-
acting, they would consult their best
interests by coming to terms with
France. If German diplomacy were
! marked by that wit or vision which, in
the past, has not always distinguished
1t. the Wilhelmstrssse would have vol
unteered concessions before the French
| asked them.
The Darmstaedter e. Nationalbank,
| which has Just closed its doors in Ber-
| lin and in HUNDREDS of ether German
cities where 1t has branches, is the one
I in which DR.. Bernard Dernburg, Ger
| man arch-propagGndiSt In the United
States in 1914 and 1915, made his repu-
tation Dernburg was chairman of the
Darmstaedter's beard in 1907. when the
Kaiser appointed him German colonial
minister Dernburg's German Who's
/ Who autobiography narrates that he
was in America seven times" If he
were not identified with the new dis
credited prewar and wartime regime,
/ Dernburg would probably be sitting in
at this witching hour with the men
who are trying to keen the German
ship of State afloat. He made his
reputation as a banker In the field OF
salvag.ng sinking financial barks.