Daives Report

Dawes Report

Last minute wrestling with translation difficulties delayed publication of the Experts Report, forecast for April 7.

An official spokesman said: "The Dawes Committee report is complete and has been agreed upon in principle by the experts." He added, with a touch of melancholy: "We must be greater experts on finance than we are linguists."

The French member of the committee, M. Parmentier, said: "If this business proves a success, we owe it all to Mr. Young." Owen D. Young, in spite of poor health, has led the fight for the report.

An unconfirmed "scoop" by The New York World indicated that the report would be cast along the following lines:

1.) Germany to continue payments in kind and treaty charges without a moratorium, but with a loan of $200,000,000.

Full reparations instalments must be met--25,000,000,000 gold marks a year, with a possible increase according to a scientific index of prosperity. This total is to be raised by: a) 1,250,000,000 gold marks in taxation; b) 660,000,000 income from railway debentures; c) 290,000,000 transport tax and 300,000,000 debentures on industry.

2.) The appointment of a Commissioner General, representative of the Reparations Commission, with four Chief Commissioners and a suitable staff, to supervise the necessary taxation and regulation of financial reforms.

The four Chief Commissioners will be stationed in the Gold Bank, the railroad administration, the Ministry of Finance controlling debentures on industry, and in the budget.

The Gold Bank will be capitalized at 400,000,000 gold marks. 100,000,000 will go to the Reichsbank for its shares. The remainder will be placed on the market. Capital will be in gold or foreign equivalents, Dr. Schacht will be President, with a General Board of 14, of whom seven will be Germans and the other seven American, British, French, Italian, Belgian, Dutch, Swiss.

The bank will have a monopoly of issuing notes for Germany. It will serve as depository for reparation collections. The German Government will not be permitted to overdraw.

A Bank Transfer Committee of six, all foreigners, including one American, will handle the reparations account, with large powers.

3.) Fifty thousand miles of German railways will be turned over to a company for 50 years, after which they will return to the Government. The company will sell 2,000,000,000 gold marks of preferential shares, one-fourth to go to the Government to balance the budget. A Railway Administration Board of 18, nine Germans and nine appointees of the Reparation Commission, will supervise the railroads.

The railroads must be bonded for 11,000,000,000 gold marks at 5% interest and 1% sinking fund. They must provide 3,000,000,000 gold marks in bonds on the transport tax, 7 1/2% of gross freight and passenger earnings.

4.) German industry will pay 300,000,000 gold marks from a 5,000,000,000 bond issue at 6 %, along lines formerly suggested by Chancellor Cuno. The first year will be exempt, and interest will be advanced to 6% only as prosperity warrants.

In general the first five years will be devoted to progressive payments, rising from 1,000,000,000 in kind and cash the first year, to the 2,500,000,000 maximum.

What France Thinks. Poincare is pledged to accept the Dawes report. But Poincare told the Reich Ambassador to Paris that France would call the

German Government to account for its "progressively arrogant and dangerous attitude" towards France on the eve of publication of the report.

What Germany Thinks. While Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, announced that plans for the proposed Gold Reserve Bank were complete, it was learned that nearly 8,000,000,000 gold marks of German capital had been traced in its flight abroad by the McKenna Experts Committee (TIME, March 3). Forecasts of the Dawes report indicated resentment at the idea of an Allied Commissioner General. The suggested loan to Germany of $200,000,000 was considered too small. Nationalists and industrialists bitterly attacked the whole scheme. Dr. Schacht opposed Allied control, saying "a nation of 60,000,000 cannot be subject to Ottoman control methods."

What Britain Thinks. British opinion was pessimistic over the acceptance by Germany of the report. London announced that Britain would not participate in the proposed $200,000,000 loan. It was learned that delay in publication of the report had been caused by opposition of the British delegates, Sir John Bradbury and John Maynard Keynes. The latter is one of the most persistent foes of French continental policy. Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace was the first general indictment of the equity and the workability of the Versailles Treaty. Since then, as a publicist, he has constantly fought for reduction of German reparations.

What the U. S. Thinks. Washington considered the reported terms of the experts scheme a compromise between moderate English and extreme French reparations claims. Doubt was expressed that Germany would accept the plan.

What Woodrow Wilson Thought.

"Last Talks with Woodrow Wilson," an article in the Saturday Evening Post of March 29, by James Kerney, described Wilson's last press interview, given to Mr. Kerney on December 7, 1923. The former President, signatory of the Versailles Treaty, according to Keynes and Poincare the proponent of many of the reparations terms which have since been found unworkable, said to his interviewer: "I should like to see Germany clean up France, and I should like to meet Jusserand [French Ambassador to the U. S.] and tell him that to his 'face." Mr. Kerney added: "He was plainly irritated at the French politicians; none among them, save Loucheur, he felt had told him the truth. Stanley Baldwin's defeat was a good thing, not only for England, but for its effect on Poincare, 'who is a bully', he added."