Newspapers / The Daily Advance (Elizabeth … / May 17, 1924, edition 1 / Page 5
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Situation In Germany By FRANK H. SIMOND9 Copyrighted 1924 by McClPre Newspaper Syndicate ??M,Mav }:~Tw? tirtr.o . t n election calcula-i vote are ,' iY' "" ^ of the ! ism; "r?ca* '*? ssSre^TiM KK.r/ *.kI SSiKffr.s aC\Titiar"ty a'n>o.'tha? wi?Llftj tion of the Tew Heichsta^'l/.'tu^ied any group of parties r ,orl nWerMarx s, aIWa5,S provld^ ''"he does 0ot";ma!nemhT , combi??"on ff. ions by He L made' c?mblna monarchic sympathies""CaD or cess for Ihe'?twor,'pr,7entC<i a 8ue" which derives it? e*trenie8? one of| Moscow and ? Aspiration from S?aM??SSHS l>y precise?* J ? ?s8es were "la<ie 1 w ^6^'Democratic tfl^T varian Peoples Party 20 tha? ? ?! in Actually "J/ "ft.VerS try ,reSenleU the Mar* Minis try, but sustained the Cabinet as n consequence of the recent lhe "tuation ^l this Socialists 100, Centre fii People, 44, Democratic 25' Bly L ?, I cople8 !6. that is 247 in all i-lemenfsaof0ll9l088 ?/ th? moderate third nr i/ ? or almo?t exactly a" tl lrd. Of this loss the Socialists Is the greatest, namely 73, while the ne0w?h0l,i? lost 46 n Se 465 c a,"bt'V,a membership of these fo.ir ?i b0 P?8slble for total of p^7Pfrt,es wi,h a combined total of 247 to control, and in noini of fact they would bo aided by the votes of certain groups V ,.hiJy c.ontr,ast w|th the moderates Th* v rr v,9 fare<i as follows' 7n the iTai ' Wll? had 67 SPats In the old house, count 96 in the new. The rolkl.che Party the ex! treme, fire-eating nationalists, who hardly existed before, number 32 Thus the nonarchial groups have in creased from 70 to 128, a gain of ?J8. As for the Communists, they ?r,ene/,Panded. ,helr nunibers from the' B g"ln of 47' The ?aln f?r the two extreme parties is thus o?ibo8Is,Ts 'n the ?,d ch" to 190 in the new. or 105 sea's as compared with 119 iost by the moderate groups, the difference re presenting accessions of minor par Roughly spealng. then, four par ties in tlie new chamber pledged to fhoCKla1Ce,?f ,he nawes report as the basis for settlement count 247 seats while three parties, committ ed to oppose it counted 190 while na?H 2Ve,V* have ,allen ln m'nor Hn .k must be perceived at ParH ">? two -Nationalists larties and the Communists can opposing the settlement, they cannot combine on any other ? ng e Issue, for ?ne represents rev olution and the other reaction. Now the first question has been as to how the next cabinet would be rahTn.t' ?''V>.'OU"ly ,hcre mlght bp a cabinet of the moderates with the fre .hi d0 ,the Socialists, the Cen tre, the Peoples and the Democratic Party supporting It. But there might just as easily he ? cabinet based up ?IM. ?n50m.Knat,?? of ,he Nationa lists and the three Bourgeoisie parties, with 96 votes for the for mer and 147 for the Utter, or 243 in all With the certainty of acquir pnrtfes ?nal V?">* fr?m ,he m,nor This latter combination would be 'more natural, for there are more points In common between the moderates and the nationalists than botweon the moderates and Social I"?""".'* u"'r ,he nationalists would accept the moderate view as to the Dawes report as a basis for ?:ratl?n '?r "ett'ement. And tre of ?n ??em Is the real oen of all present German political manoeuvring. Not only wouM s?ch a coalition be more natural but on the whole it would be far better re presentative of the actual sentiment cen? election?" "y "" What the election really meant would seem to be that, while not rejecting the Dawes Report, it sev- I erely disciplined those parties which j had declared openly for the ac ceptance of the experts' report or j added greatly to the strength of , those which had openly antagonised i it. Germany it would appear, then, j from this point of examination is willing to discuss the Dawes report with a view to reaching a settlement but is in no mood to accept it uncon ditionally or without great conces sions. A Socialist-Moderate combination would certainly approach the Allies in a far more conciliatory spirit than a Nationalist-Moderate coalition, but the latter would seem far more ac curately to represent the present temper of the German people. Ac tually the sticking point might very well be the question of the evacua tion of the Ruhr. Under the Dawes Report the French and Belgians are asked to abandon the economic ex ploitation of the Ruhr, but not to withdraw their military garrisons, but nothing seems more certain than that no German government can possibly accept the Dawes re port unless military occupation as well as economic exploitation is end-] ed. Measured by the recent test Ger many is by no means In the mood of 1919, when the Paris Conference met. she is not in the least in the temper of 1923. when the Ruhr conflict ended in her unconditional surrender. On the contrary her economic and financial recovery since tnat time has had its political and patriotic consequences; Ger many feels stronger and she not on ly feels stronger but she demands that her leaders represent this new spirit and that her former conquer ors deal with her as an equal. As 1 see it. the situation In Ger many turns upon two facts. In the first place, despite the temporary re covery following the stabilization of j exchange through the rentenmark, real rehabilitation depends upon a' foreign loan and no considerable { foreign loan is conceivable save as1 lit is a detail in a general liquida tion of the reparations tangle. In ! other words Germany can get no i money abroad as long as she refus es to accept the Dawes Report. And in the end she cannot maintain her j present domestic, economic and fi i nancial balance without a foreign j loan. Thus a German rejection of the j Dawes Report outright would be in the nature of a domestic disaster. ?The rentenmark would collapse, there would be a return of all the i old phenomena of Inflation and all the circumstances of chaos. Patent ly this Is something big business in Germany would avoid and on the other side masses of the people would wish to escape. And an open rejection would not only end Franco Belgian occupation of the Ruhr but i it would certainly prolong It indefi [nltely. That, on the whole probably explains why the parties advocating rejection failed to get a majority. On the other hand it is patent that ; In the new temper of Germany pro longed occupation of the Ruhr would be intolerable. Masses of Germans [believe sincerely enough that the French are planning to remain per I manently in the Ruhr and on the j middle and lower Rhine; for them the evacuation is quite as vital a matter as was the liberation of the | north and east of France for the , French during the World War, lt jself. Since the Dawes Report did not deal with this question, any Ger man Cabinet is bound to seek to have ! this question also resolved and re | solved in a German fashion, before the Dawes Report is accepted. Germany, then, has voted to ac-j cept the Dawes report as a basis of discussion, hut she has given the! largest Increase In votes to precisely those parties which have denounced this report because of Its failure to meet the outstanding German de mand; and if the Nationalist Party now or later consents to form a min istry, it will be with the afnwod in tention of wringing a complete con cession from the Allies on this point. The sine qua non of German accep tance of the Dawes report Is the evacuation of the Ruhr by the French and the Belgians, the com plete evacuation. On the other hand, despite their pre-election thunderings it la plain, that the Nationalists have no desire; to provoke a new war or bring about fresh and more extreme reprisals from the French. They have already given fairly clear proof of their change in lone with respect of the, Dawes report and they remain total ly Incapable of enlisting the neces-j sary aid from the moderate parties., save as they scrap their unconditlon-i al rejection of this plan. i We are pretty sure then to have a new German ministry?or to see the | old ministry continued, pledged to go to new conferences with the Al lies and discuss the terms of the Dawes report. The chances that Ger manv will not run all the risks , dent'to flouting the sentiment of the J world and driving off all possible fi nancial aid by an unconditional re jection of the Dawes plan are slight in the extreme. In that direction lies suicide. If the real purpose of Poincare were as Germans allege, to destroy Germany, nothing could, make his task easier than such a course. . But Germany Is coming to a new , conference neither repentant nor, submissive, she Is coming to bargain | and she is going to demand concea-j aions. She Is going to make a new, effort to divide her conquerors and j above all to reopen the breach be-, twcen France and Great Britain. | And obviously the whole manoeuvre ; will turn upon the military occupa-! tlon of the Ruhr, which Britain has ( steadily held to be illegal and Mac Donald very frankly seeks to bring, to an end. The German game must be. un-1 less madness again dominates, to of- ? fer rather complete acceptance of the ^ economic phases of the DaweB Re port. but to make acceptance condl- j tional upon French evacuation. This, evacuation, as I have said, is not dis cussed in the Dawes report because it4ay ??t*ide the field of the experts therefore the French can quite fair ly decline to discuss it with the Ger mans. But it will hardly be as easy to refuse to discuss it with the British and the Belgians, provided the latter Incline to such a discus sion. This would he a hopeless situa tion if the French were actually re solved to stay In the Ilhur until Germany paid up. if the words of Poincare were to be accepted with out qualification ami. above all, if France herself did not desire peace and a settlement. But the fact is that France does desire a settlement and that the mass of the French people never saw the Ruhr as mora than a sheriff's operation to collect a debt. If, then, the collection of the debt is insured, the French sen timent will beyond much doubt be satisfied. The bridge over the difficulty ac tually lies in the hands of the Brit ish engineer, MaeDonald. It rests with him to give France the assur lance that if France withdraws and 'Germany later takes advantages of French withdrawal and is guilty of another voluntary default, France will not only be free to go back to the Rhur but will be assured of British approval and support, duch an assurance should satisfy French Interests as It would almost Inevit ably offer a real obstacle to German default. The second complaint against the Dawes report made In Germany, but more often made on behalf of Ger many by outside commentators. Is that the experts failed to name a total sum for reparations. They wer.f not asked to do that, they were lim ited to fixing the amount Germany could pay once her own situation were restored. To say how many years the Germans should pay what the Dawes committee fixed as a pos sible annual contribution Is the func tion of the Reparations Commission But the truth Is that tlie Germane have not shown any consuming eag erness recently to have this period delimited. They grasp the fact that once the period is fixed?and If It is fixed now It will be for a generation at least and perhaps for two?It will he almost Impossible later to get the| time reduced. German criticism ofi the Dawes report on this basis han been frequent but there has been no' specific demand for amendment. Despite nationalist propaganda | and declamation 1 do not believe that, Germany at the mom*'Ut desires a j new war or wants to go through an other period of chaos. Hut the worlJi must recognize that the Germany1 which lost the war is a thing of the past and that a new and powerful , Germany is gradually coming into belim. a Germany which Is still a great power despite the losses in ter ritory. population and wealth Incl-' dent to the World War. The Dawes committee quite skil-j fully based its terms upon the prin-' clple that all nations which particl*. pat?*d in the war should pay for Itr by equal tax contributions, thus avoiding any stigmatizing of the Ger mans as war criminals or as respons ible for the conflict. Once nnd for all the German people have repuul-j ated this responsibility and it will' never again be possible In any Inter-' national conference to put upon them, with their submission, any. such sentence as is included in the' Treaty of Versailles. The single chance of settlement now rests upon the fact tliat thej Germans perceive that they cannot, recover without foreign loans and cannot get foreign loans without giving certain engagements. To be able to return to normal prosperity3 and economic and financial balance8 Germany has now to agree to manoj certain payments to her conquerors. For her the one question Is how. much she can afford to pay for what' she desperately needs. There are1 obviously fixed limits. Ask her to pay too much, make the conditions* too onerous and too humiliating and she will reject them. Moreover Germany can still be ruined but she cannot now or ever j be coerced into payment. The Frencn nnd Belgians are making the Ruhr pay at the moment, but It may fair ly be doubted whether this situation would continue if the German nation should finally reject the Dawes plan. And the French and the Tlelgians | need money almost as badly as the Germans, they need peace almost as {much and, like the Germans, they are totally unwilling to assume re sponsibility for defeating the pro posed adjustment. For myself I regard the German elections as a very clear warning against extreme policies on the part of the Allies and particularly on the part of the French. They must serv^ equally to enlighten Paris nnd Lon don as to what is to come. They must establish the fact that military as well as economic evacuation of the j Ruhr Is the underlying condition of I any German acceptance of the Dawes plan and they must advertise to i Ramsay MacDonahl the greatness of I the task before him. when he meets ?the new French Premier shortlv. 1 If Franco and Germany were now | loft to themselves to nettle the whole I matter it would, on the faee of the I recent German election returns, seem la hopeless situation. If the ultimate | fact of those German elections is tri? [triumph of the Nationalists through the formation of a cabinet commit ted to reject the Dawes plan, then the situation will bo degperato. Itut notwithstanding the French and German states of mind, it seems to me that it in still possible to IndulK" in moasureable optimism, hocause there is a Europe which domands |settlement, there is a Britain with an able premier riuallflod to doal with both French and Gorman states of mind and to recopnlzo what is fin al in the situation of both. We shall have some form of ad justment before snow flio? or else wo shall havo new chaos and the moral certainty of new wars before a much longer span of time olapRos. If Ger many rejects the Dawos plan or if France in the end Insists upon mil itary occupation of the Ruhr, my Judgment is that the Dawos report Is doomed. Rut Germany will reject the plan if France stays in the Ruhr and Prance will stay in the ltuli>* unless she Is in some other fashion Insured against possible futur?- Ger* man wilful default. Germany believes France 1* work inu for her complete destruction and she is resolved not only to survlw but to !?*? and to be treated as a ureal power amain. The election returns mean this unmistakably. France l?. lieves Germany is platinitm iinni?di ate evasion of all reparations pay ments and ultimately a new war of revenue. And France means to live and to live free from any .cojilinuinu menace to her existence. The break between tht two nations is complete, the differences for the tittle being ir reconciliable and all hope of com promise is indlscoverable, save out side of both countries. 1 remain an optimist in the pres ent patently difficult and dangerous situation solely because I believe that in the main the spirit of all European nations is fundamentally dominated by a present fear and hor ror not only of new wars but even more of any return of the post-war nightmare which all of them hav* lived through In the past five years and are Just beginning to escape from. Hut If the Dawes report is fin Jly rejected it seems a most impos sible to hit upon any way In whim tranquility or normalcy can be at tained or fresh conflicts in the near future avoided. Germany and France are now quite unmistakably ready to fight rather than to make certain com promises, to risk ruin rather than to accept certain conditions which seem to them permanently intoler able. Mutual distrust and suspicion have reached a point where direct adjustment is totally Impossible. Yet. through the Dawes report a way of settlement has been proposed which has been in principle nctpptf'd by jboth and might, after preliminary! {amendments and following special agreements between France and Bri tain, serve as a contract of liquida tion and give Europe a chance to let its passions cool and its fears van ish. Dut it would be a dangerous mis take for Americans to conclude that up to date the Dawes report has found any real acceptance In Eut ope, and particularly In Germany. We are at the beginning, not ap proaching the end. and at best the road will be difficult in the extreme ?and the more difficult because of the results of the German election. MULTIGRAPHING Multlgraphed Letter*, Card*, Name* filled la. EnTelopes addreaaed. Price Lists. Letters of all kinds. Mrs. W. Boettcher Fourth Floor, H In ton Building. I'hone H06 1NVK8T TOUR SAVINGS IN SAFB BONDS. fl? ns for tall Info INDUSTRIAL BANK Bruises Alternate applications of hot and cold clotln?than ap Va f?o Rua Owf ITMUHtt Jmra U?d Ymmrfy IT. H. AND OOODYRAR TIRES For HcpvIw and Hatlafart Ion AUTO SlPHiY A VULCANIZING CX>M1?ANT I'HONK 407 KEYSTONE DARTIER SHOP fiollflti yonr patronage. Ladle*' and Children'* Hair Catting a Specialty. Courteous service. LET FRICK BE YOUR T A I LO R 1 SIS Knun?r Building DANCE TONIGHT 8<|U?rc Dance 8 to 11.30 at Cohoon Social Hall over Cut Kate l>nig Store SLEEPLESSNESS ? Virginia Lady Says That Many of Her Long - Suffered Ilia Have Fled Since She Took Cardui. 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Shannonhouse & Son PHOTO 187
The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City, N.C.)
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May 17, 1924, edition 1
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