Sane Counsel

Paul Rohrbach, German publicist, returned to Berlin from a trip to the U. S. Wrote he, advising the Germans to accept the experts' reports unconditionally : "Many in Germany, especially in conservative quarters, seem to think the Germans can either accept or reject the Dawes report. In reality it is like this: Acceptance is a desperate decision, but rejection is impossible. "Those who hate self-deception and are not politically ignorant will admit that America must make the final decision on all questions involved in the Dawes report. America is neither generously inclined toward nor well-informed concerning Germany. We Germans would certainly prefer a better arbiter--but there is none. "America is the only power which can lend backbone to the British policy, which inclines just now toward giving Germany a breathing spell. This English policy succeeded in winning America, against her often declared intention not to mix in European politics, to permit General Dawes to preside at the conference of experts responsible for the Dawes report, and, what is even more important than the attitude of the American Government, American public opinion considers the Dawes report an American political effort toward remedying European chaos. "That is enormously significant, because it means the reawakening of American interest in European affairs. The average American says to himself: 'Now we have lent them a hand, after all, and at the very first try we pulled the cart out of the mud.' It does not matter whether that is altogether true or whether the main credit belongs to England. The Dawes report has had an even more beneficial effect on France, who will be compelled to reduce her pretentions to a European hegemony and her military expenditures, which the Dawes report will accomplish even more certainly than it will extract reparations from Germany."