Stimson Statement

France's expected wail of protest against Dr. Schacht's reservations to the Young Plan (TIME, May 13) again failed to materialize last week. Limping, the Reparations conference continued to advance.

Important in the week's development was an announcement by U. S. Secretary of State Stimson officially quashing the possibility of the U. S. Government's participation in the proposed International Bank. Secretary Stimson said: "While we look with interest and sympathy upon the efforts of the committee of experts to suggest a solution and a settlement of the vexing question of German reparations, this government does not desire to have any American official directly or indirectly participate in the collection of German reparations through the agency of this bank or otherwise.

"Ever since the close of the War the American government has consistently taken this position. It has never accepted membership on the reparations commission. The comparatively small sums which it receives under the Dawes Plan are applied solely to the settlement of the claims judicially ascertained by the mixed claims commission (the United States and Germany), and to the repayment of the expenses of the American Army of Occupation at Coblenz."

This statement produced varied effects. It was hardly more than the Second Dawes Committee delegates had expected, but in many quarters it produced a sentiment of discouragement, an opinion that the U. S. persisted in being "timidly aloof."

President Hoover was quick to sense the necessity of further assistance, unofficial though it was. for the reparations conference. Therefore, last Sunday, at the White House, he held an extraordinary conference of U. S. Government leaders at which a modification and reduction of German payments to the U. S. were agreed upon. These changes in U. S. claims, designed as a moral offset to the Stimson statement and as a new gesture of "friendly co-operation,'' were trivial. But they would, if accepted, be sufficient to put the U. S. in a position where its unofficial representatives at Paris could argue that their government was ready to make "a sacrifice'' to secure a new international agreement.

U. S. claims against Germany, to be paid in annuities under the Dawes Plan, totaled, last September, 350 million dollars--207 million dollars for the cost of the U. S. Army of Occupation, 143 millions in mixed claims. Last year the U. S. received from Germany 20 million dollars. Though the details of the U.S. "sacrifice offer," as contained in a note despatched to the U. S. Embassy at Paris, were not immediately made public, it was learned that they amounted to about a 10% reduction in Germany's annual payments to the U. S. Though total payments were not to be cut, the U. S. was ready to allow Germany a longer time to meet them.