Revising Revived

The Agent General of Reparations, Seymour Parker Gilbert, stopped fashionably in Rome last week at the Hotel Excelsior. One morning there called for him a twinkling limousine in which sat a scrubby bearded Roman of alert, engaging mien. Soon Agent Gilbert stepped into the limousine and sped away for a day of motoring and converse with Finance Minister Count Giuseppe Volpi, famed co-negotiator with Secretary Mellon of the Italo-U. S. debt settlement (TIME, Nov. 23, 1925).

Later, the scrubby bearded Count formally presented Mr. Gilbert to Signor Mussolini. There was much talk--about what?

Agent Gilbert avoided denying to newsgatherers that he came to sound out Italians upon possible future modification of the Dawes Plan. He is known to favor assigning to Germany a definite total reparations debt in place of her present sliding commitments to the Allies. Moreover Agent Gilbert is thought to lean toward the scheme for raising money to fund most of the German indebtedness in cash, by placing on the market huge blocs of German railway & industrial bonds now held by the Reparations Commission.

What Agent Gilbert did definitely say, last week,, was that any contemplated revision of the Dawes Plan is still "in the phase of study," and that "no extraordinary or decisive results" are to be expected from his present visit to Rome. He went on to reaffirm his oft repeated statement that the revision of German liabilities at a definite and presumably somewhat reduced figure would not necessarily involve a similar readjustment of Allied indebtedness to the U. S. Said Agent Gilbert, in the manner of President Coolidge: "The reparation question is an entirely independent problem concerning only European nations and has no relation to the debts of the various countries to the United States."

To enliven the cautious conversations at Rome, last week, came a fire eating, swashbuckling editorial from L'Impero, an arch-Fascist news organ which performs the sometimes useful function of a watch-puppy which can bark but not bite. Barked L'Impero:

"At the end of 1918 Italy should have marched on Vienna, and France and England should have marched on Berlin, and the conquered populations should have been forced to sacrifice their production for a century, if necessary, in order to indemnify the victors. This is what Germany did in 1870, and she was quite right. The Allies, instead, allowed America to betray them in 1918, and they were quite wrong.

"Instead of the disastrous economic crisis which now crushes the whole of Europe we should have economic crushing only of the conquered peoples. This is what historical justice required. It would be just to give up German reparations only if such a step were made dependent on America and England letting France and Italy off the sums owed them."

In telling contrast to these blatancies, came news that Signor Mussolini was unusually active last week in participating in a series of quiet conferences with visiting foreign statesmen, which began when he received Turkish Foreign Minister Tewfik Rushdi Bey in Milan (TIME, April 16). Further august visitors received last week were Prime Minister Count Bethlen of Hungary, Foreign Minister August Zaleski of Poland, Foreign Minister Andrew Michalapoulos of Greece, and German Finance Minister Dr. Heinrich Koehler.