New Big Three

SNOWDEN, Briand and Stresemann were the "Big Three" at the first Hague Reparations Conference, with SNOWDEN towering in the news because of his unexpected, stubborn demand for a bigger slice of "reparations spongecake" (TIME, Aug. 12 et seq.).

But last week, when the second Hague Conference met, the new "Big Three" were seen to be CURTIUS, TARDIEU and SNOWDEN, with the courageous, crippled and allegedly crapulous* little Yorkshireman totally missing from headlines because, having bitten off $9,520,000 worth of "spongecake." he has sensibly shut his mouth on it.

Eyes, cameras, typewriters and a roaring battery of telegraph machines were busy with new issues, new men. For them hospitable Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands had carpenters knock together a huge round table in what is ordinarily the lower house of the Dutch Parliament. A little hasty, a little crude were these arrangements, for the lower house had just risen a few days before. But a big, bland tablecloth covered chinks and splinters, was only a little lumpy. Eyeing each other shrewdly sat the two young statesmen, newly great, between whom the chief issues of last week lay: Dr. Julius Curtius, successor to the late great Dr. Gustav Stresemann as Foreign Minister of the German Republic; and M. Andre Pierre Gabriel Amedee Tardieu, famed as "L'Americain," successor to M. Aristide Briand as Prime Minister of the French Republic./-

Curtius is 52, Tardieu is 53. In the way of Democracy v. Autocracy jaunty Captain Tardieu of the 44th Alpine Chasseurs, was wounded and received the Legion d'Honneur's red rosette "for extraordinary courage."

Meanwhile, as commander of a German battery, Dr. Curtius rushed his guns forward at a crucial moment in the Battle of Verdun, demolished an important French fort, was promoted to the staff of the then Commander-in-Chief of the German Offensive, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, and received from the Imperial hand itself the Iron Cross. Quiet Dr. Curtius, who looks even more like a U. S. businessman than M. Tardieu, is the first soldier to be appointed Foreign Minister of the German Republic.

Issue of Sanctions. The first thing that Curtius and Tardieu did at The Hague--once the conference had been formally opened by Prime Minister Henri Jaspar of Belgium--was to get together for a long secret conference at the Hotel des Indes where they were rumored to have exchanged high words.

Both were agreed on the general principle that the great powers must now ratify once and for all the Owen D. Young Plan, which fixes for the first time the total which Germany owes in reparations and lays down the complete scale of payments for 58 years. So far so good. But deputies of the French Parliament have been asking M. Tardieu: "What guarantee has France that Germany will make these payments? What punishment awaits Germany if she decides not to pay?"

The Young Plan, a purely business document, does not provide for inflicting punishment--or, in the suave language of diplomacy, "for the application of sanctions."

The German position, which Dr. Curtius undoubtedly urged upon M. Tardieu last week, is: First that no punishment is provided for France if she decides to welch on her debts to Britain and the U. S.; second that Washington has within the past fortnight signed a separate financial agreement with Berlin in which there is not one word about "sanctions" covering payment by the Fatherland of the cost of U. S. occupation of part of Germany after the war; finally that Germany expects the Allies and particularly M. Tardieu to follow the lead of President Hoover in taking the word of Germany that she will pay as her sole and sufficient bond.

Compromise on this great issue was scarcely in the air last week as the one-time battlefield enemies argued in a bedroom. But the possibility was mooted that a reparations arbitration board might be set up, with Germany and France both binding themselves to accept its decisions.

Wall Street Issue. Bigger than "sanctions" is Wall Street. Can and will the U. S. investor buy up huge blocs of the reparations bonds which Europe hopes to put on the market as soon as the Young Plan comes into effect, thus pouring billions of U. S. dollars into the treasuries of the Allied Powers, and leaving the U. S. investor with security in the shape of a German promise?

When the first Hague Conference met it was assumed by all that this could be done, and France displayed far less anxiety about that than she did last week about whether Germany might default. But the Wall Street crash has raised doubts as to whether U. S. investors can be depended on to hold the German bag--full or empty as the future will reveal. Last week lean, jocular Melvin Alvah Traylor, President of The First National Bank of Chicago, and quiet, thickset Jackson Eli Reynolds, President of First National Bank of New York, were on the Atlantic en route to tell the statesmen at The Hague what can be expected from U. S. investors. Mr. Reynolds was chairman of the Baden-Baden bankers committee which drew up the charter and statutes of the proposed Bank for International Settlements (B. I. S.), "The cash register of Young Plan payments" (TIME, Sept. 23 et seq.); and Mr. Traylor has been mentioned as probable chairman of the B. I. S. Before sailing from Manhattan on the Berengaria they consulted the oracles of J. P. Morgan & Co. It was freely said at The Hague that until these were known the conference could not really begin. Several delegates voiced indignation at the tardiness of omen bearers Reynolds and Traylor.

"Oriental Issues." Correspondents insisted on referring to the reparations problems of Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria v. the Little Entente (i.e., Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Rumania) as the "Oriental Issues"--a complete misnomer since not one of these countries is "oriental" and Bulgaria and in some districts Jugoslavia are the only ones where the people freely admit that they are "Balkan." (Call a Hungarian "You Balkan!" and his hackles will infallibly rise.)

In the special commission of the conference appointed to deal with these problems and chairmanned by Lou -Loucheur ("The Richest Man in France"), notable progress was made last week when the "orientals" accepted in principle the following plan: Let Austria renounce her claims against the Little Entente on account of their seizures of Austrian lands and property; and let the Little Entente renounce their claims against Austria for reparations. Though this simple compromise gained much favor, it was by no means certain to be adopted, and the complex related issues touching Hungary and Rumania reared ugly heads.

Six hundred thousand dollars annually until 1966 is asked from Bulgaria in reparations, and she offered last week to pay $430,000 a year for the same period with chances good that the difference would be split.

*This elegant British adjective, meaning "sick as a result of gross intemperance in eating or drinking," was publicly applied to Mr. Snowden in the House of Commons fortnight ago by his immediate predecessor as Chancellor of the Ex chequer, the Right Honorable Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, M. P., onetime Lord Rector Aberdeen University.

/-Foxy old M. Briand, who has been twelve times Prime Minister, accompanied M. Tardieu as Foreign Minister last week, effaced himself as much as possible, let the youngster have his day.

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