A Pricked Bubble

The prospect for an Allied conference on reparations with U. S. participation was extirpated from the marsh of international politics.

U. S. Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes declined to participate in the conference, because France had limited the scope of the conference to Germany's " present" capacity to pay reparations (meaning what Germany can pay from now until Jan. 1, 1930). This renders the conference useless, as at least a six-year moratorium of reparation payments must be granted to Germany. Furthermore, French insistence on keeping the Ruhr problem entirely out-side the orbit of the conference was understood to have been another factor unacceptable to the U. S. Government. President Coolidge ("the taciturn") described the conference as restricted by the French as " wholly futile and useless." Secretary Hughes said that an inquiry under such terms would be reduced to a mere "audit." Although the door was left open to France in case Premier Poincare withdrew from his position, such an eventuality was considered extremely improbable.

The news of the U. S. refusal to join in the proposed conference was received with marked depression in Europe. The Paris press tried to make light of it by stating that the U. S. attitude was perfectly logical in consequence of her not having signed the Versailles Treaty, upon which the French Government based its attitude to the conference. It is likely, however, that the French Premier will have to face a storm from the Radical bloc. In Belgium the U. S. withdrawal was regarded as certain to cause the fall of Premier Theunis, who had leaned heavily on U. S. intervention, so heavily that Paris was considered unlikely to be able to restore his equilibrium in Brussels. In Italy, the solemn-faced Dictator, Premier Benito Mussolini, was " gravely disappointed," and IL Giornale d'ltalia, Rome journal, said: "We cannot lend our support to France's intransigent attitude upon this occasion." In Britain, the news was received with mixed feelings. The Rothermere press, of which the Hearst press in the U. S. is the prototype, declared for Premier Poincare. The Observer, London Sunday paper, openly advocated a break with France and remarked that " Baldwin cannot longer mark time while Poincare puts the finishing touches to the European catastrophe." Another newspaper proposed pressing France for payment of her debt to Britain. Official circles were sanguine about the situation and expressed the opinion that a conference with U. S. participation would yet take place.

Other quarters stated, on reliable authority, that the next step to be taken by the U. S. and Britain will be the calling of a world disarmament conference in which the German situation in all its kaleidoscopic hues will certainly be discussed. The proponents of this argument point to the fact that Secretary Hughes expressly stated in his note to British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon that, should the plans for the conference fail, the U. S. would "reserve decision" as to its course of action.

The facts leading up to the present situation are that Britain sent a note to the U. S. stating that the times were propitious for holding an expert inquiry on the reparations problem on Secretary Hughes' previously outlined plan; the U. S. replied that she would join in the inquiry, providing the Allies agreed unanimously to invite her; Britain then addressed to France, Belgium, Italy a proposal that the inquiry or conference be held; these countries replied to Britain accepting the proposal " in principle"; Britain then submitted a draft of the invitation to be addressed to the U. S.; with "slight verbal changes " (by Belgium), Belgium and Italy approved the text of the invitation, but France knocked a lower card out of the house by insisting upon juxtaposing the words "present" and "capacity"; thereby causing the collapse of the whole structure.