Political Week

The Chancellor, his Cabinet, the Reichstag and Germany as a whole participated, last week, in a series of important political events:

P: Chancellor (Premier) Dr. Wilhelm Marx pressed forward with a preliminary draft scheme which looks toward consolidation of the various German state governments in the interest of general administrative economy. This he presented to the Laenderkonjerenz, a council of the chief executives of all the 18 states which constitute the Republic of Germany, of which Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg is President.

P: The Ministry of Defense was placed in the strong hands of General Wilhelm Groener.

P: Foreign Minister Dr. Gustav Stresemann, the "German Lloyd George," suffered a combined attack of influenza and kidney trouble which was expected to keep him from his desk at the Foreign Office for at least a month.

P: The Reichstag assembled and began to debate the Budget for 1928 (see p. 18).

From Paris came news which all Germans scanned eagerly. They learned that the Agent General of Reparations, Mr. Seymour Parker Gilbert, called last week upon Premier Raymond Poincare of France, and drew from him an admission that the French Government might soon consent to some scaling down of German reparations and to their fixation at a definite total sum. This last point was strongly urged by Agent Gilbert in his most recent report (TIME, Dec. 26), and, last week, he discussed it thoroughly not. only with M. Poincare at Paris, but next day in Brussels with the Belgian Finance Minister Baron Maurice Houtart. At present the total "legal liability" of Germany to the allies stands fixed at 132 billion gold marks by the so-called "London Ultimatum" of 1921; but no one dreams that so huge a sum will ever be paid in full and the Dawes Plan functions ad interim to limit the sums which can be exacted from Germany in a given year.

Domestic life with ex-royalty not entirely agreeing with him Alexander Subkoff took to drink. His wife. Princess Victoria zu Schaumburg-Lippe, sister of the former Kaiser, 34 years his senior, not agreeing with his drinking, issued orders. The youthful husband retired to Ahrweiler to take a cure.