GERMANIA PAYS AND PAYS

When in 1924 France grew exasperated at the Gordian knot into which Germany was lying the matter of reparations, she solved the situation in traditional military fashion by ordering her troops to occupy the Ruhr. Other nations, less precipitate in action, shared her anger over the matter of post war settlements. The situation was rapidly becoming a crisis when Charles G. Dawes, Owen Young, and their associates were appointed by the Reparations Commission to draw up what has since been called the Dawes Plan for Reparations Payment. The Dawes plan is responsible for the present stabilization of German currency, the balancing of her annual budget, and for the fact that Germany's factories are now turning out more goods than they did during the war. Most significant of all, every mark of reparations has been paid, precisely on time.

The Reparations Commission has been alarmed to learn that the Reichstag plans for next year a series of great industrial expenditures. Although the large profits of the new German rail-road system under governmental control have been instrumental in the payment on time of the war debts of 1925, 1926, and 1927, the Allies, as represented in the Reparations Commission are trying to discourage any additional investments by the Republic. The annual payments for the first four years increased only from 250,000,000 to 500,000,000 marks, while the payment for the fifth year and all subsequent years is 1,250,000,000 marks. The representative of the Reparations Commission in Berlin has already written to the German Minister of Finance, reminding him of the additional funds which must be on hand to meet this increase.

The fear of the Allies that Germany would be outlawed from world trade and hence unable to pay her debts, seems to have been without foundation. And there is at least one paradox in the spectacle of the wealthiest nation in the world pausing long over a half billion dollar loan to her own merchant marine, while Germany needs a foreign check-rein to keep her from staking her last cent on German enterprise.