Belgian Marks

Having pledged its honor to do so, Germany last week came to agreement with Belgium on the nettlesome Belgian Marks issue which for a time threatened to upset the Young Plan for adjusting Reparations (TIME, June 10).

Back in 1914 when U. S. War-Correspondent Richard Harding Davis looked out of his Brussels hotel window to find the streets flowing with the quiet grey river of General von Bissing's soldiery, Belgian banks were seized, Belgian gold and money were removed from the vaults, German paper marks planted in their place. In 1918, with the fall of Imperial Germany, these marks became worthless. All through the long meetings of the Second Dawes Commission this year, peppery Emile Franqui, chief of the Belgian delegation, insistently demanded that redemption of the worthless marks be included in the Young Plan. Germany's stiff-collared Hjalmar Schacht declared with equal insistence that he had no authority to do so. Chairman Owen D. Young saved his Plan by getting Herr Schacht and colleagues to promise that Germany would discuss marks with Belgium immediately after the Paris conferences were finished. Last week, quietly in Brussels, this agreement was made:

1) Belgium's original claim of $1,626,300,000 was reduced to $123,000,000.

2) The sum will be paid in 37 annuities, beginning March 31, 1930, averaging $3,910,586.

3) The annuities shall be paid in cash (Belgian paper francs), in exactly the same manner as Young Plan annuities. In case of a Young Plan moratorium, the Germany-to-Belgium payments shall continue, though in this event payment in kind will be accepted.

4) Belgium shall now discuss the return of German property in Belgium, confiscated after the War, not yet liquidated.