"Demands Revision"

The Reichstag welkin rang last week with probably the most concerted denunciation of the Dawes Plan yet heard within its walls. Deputies representing every German political faction spoke in well nigh unanimous agreement for something over a half day, amid repeated applause from all over the House. No Cabinet member took part in the debate, but Deputy Friedrich Dessauer, speaking for the Centrist party of Chancellor (Prime Minister) Wilhelm Marx, was considered to have voiced the opinion of the government when he said:

"The annual reparations payments to which we are committed under the Dawes Plan represent a greater sum than the entire pre-War budget of the German Empire. Only foreign loans have enabled the Dawes Plan to operate hitherto, and the plain fact is that Germany cannot go on borrowing abroad forever. . . .

"Germany carries its burdens not because it feels itself morally obligated thereto, but because as a conquered nation it has undertaken the payments by a treaty. These burdens exist not because Germany began the War [Applause] but because Germany lost the War. [Silence]. ... Germany demands revision of these burdens! [Prolonged applause]. ..."

Though numerous deputies took up this theme, expressing substantially unanimous concurrence, the debate ended amid impotent wrath with a vote approving the reparations clauses of the German budget as presented by Finance Minister Dr. Koehler, himself an especially vigorous advocate of Dawes Plan revision.

Moreover, during the week, 125,000,000 gold marks ($29,745,000) were paid up on the dot to Agent General of Reparations Seymour Parker Gilbert who wrote down this sum as the first half-yearly installment of interest due, for the third reparations year, on the Dawes Plan loans of 5,000,000,000 gold marks. As security for these loans a virtual mortgage is held on the chief units of production comprising the mechanism of German industry.