Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. The Allied and Associated Governments recognize that the resources of Germany are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an Allied and Associated Power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea, and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in Annex I hereto. The amount of the above damage for which compensation is to be made by Germany shall be determined by an Inter-Allied Commission, to be called the Reparation Commission, and constituted in the form and with the powers set further hereunder and in Annexes II to VII, inclusive, hereto. This Commission shall consider the claims and give to the German Government a just opportunity to be heard. The findings of the Commission as to the amount of damage defined as above shall be concluded and notified to the German Government on or before May 1, 1921, as representing the extent of that Government's obligations. Ever since the acceptance of this treaty by Germany, the Allies have been engaged in protracted efforts to agree among themselves as to the terms to be imposed upon Germany. Informal discussions in the early part of 1920 resulted in the evolution of the "mobile" plan under which Germany was to pay "certain fixed annuities, and, in addition, variable annuities determined by the fluctuations of her prosperity (as measured by index-numbers based on railway returns, customs, receipts, and other factors) above a fixed datum line." 2 At the Boulogne Conference held in the latter part of June, 1920, the index-number scheme was discarded and the expedient substituted of ensuring a full toll on Germany's increasing prosperity by fixing the indemnity impossibly high and giving power to the Reparation Commission to "postpone" (another way of writing "remit") such portions as might prove to be beyond her capacity. The Boulogne Conference was notable for the fact that the project there adopted was primarily the work of a French expert; that it provided for the extension of payments over forty-two years, whereas the treaty definitely stipulated for thirty; and that serious thought was for the first time given to the Financial Conference convened at Brussels by the League of Nations at the request of the Allies, at which it was hoped the foundations might be laid for an international loan to capitalize any annuities by that time agreed on between the Allies and Germany. The actual outcome of Boulogne was a demand for annuities totalling 269 milliards spread over a period of forty-two years, the Reparation Commission, however, having power, as has been said, to make certain "postponements." It remained, as the treaty stipulated, to "give the German Government a just opportunity to be heard." The 2 For this and the quotations following, see an article by H. Wilson Harris on "The Conference That Failed" in the Contemporary Review for April, 1921, which has served as the main source of information for this part of our editorial. Cf. "The Breakdown of the London Conference" in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1921. opportunity was fixed for Spa a month later, and the League of Nations, intently observing the evolutions of the Supreme Council, postponed its Financial Conference accordingly. At the Spa Conference (July 5-16, 1920), the Germans participated in these discussions for the first time. Their main proposals are thus summarized by Mr. Harris: The payment of minimum annuities on a thirty-year basis. Germany's creditors to share in any future improvement in her economic condition. All claims against Germany to be consolidated into a single demand. It appears that these proposals were never discussed, owing to the coal and disarmament crises' which arose at this time. The Geneva Conference, at which the subject was to have been discussed, was never held. It was not until the meeting of the Brussels Conference in December, 1920, that the discussions on reparations were resumed. According to Mr. Harris,3 The Brussels conversations were more hopeful than any of their predecessors. The impossibility of measuring Germany's future capacity, and arriving there and then at a scheme of payments running a generation ahead, was frankly recognized, and a provisional settlement formulated under which Germany should at once engage to pay annuities of three milliards for the five years, 1921-1926, leaving the permanent settlement to be worked out more at leisure in the course of that period. But where the experts were on the point of agreeing the politicians incontinently intervened. The Supreme Council was to meet in Paris in January to discuss, primarily, the disarmament of Germany. By some process which even now remains obscure Reparations wormed its way on to the agenda, and quickly thrust itself into the forefront. If it was thought, as it undoubtedly was in some quarters, that the Brussels discussions had gone far enough to enable the Heads of States to endorse an agreement that the experts had virtually reached, there was much to be said for the procedure. In actual fact, the first thing the Supreme Council did was to throw out of window the basic principle of the Brussels concordat, that of a preliminary and provisional settlement. At Paris in 1921, as at Paris in 1919, politicians came together to talk finance and talked politics instead. If M. Briand went out of office in France, M. Poincare or M. Tardieu might come in. Moreover, there was in the Brussels plan no immediate promise of ready money, and no total of hundreds of milliards to dazzle the eyes of the newspaper readers of the boulevard cafés. The Council turned thumbs up, and the Brussels plan vanished. And what came instead? What came instead, after a gulf portending disaster be tween British and French had been bridged by the joint effort of Italians and Belgians, was the now notorious formula, for which the politicians rather than the experts claim pride of authorship, under which the Germans were called on to pay over fortytwo years (Mr. Lloyd George was for keeping to the thirty of the treaty, but M. Briand held him to the Boulogne agreement on that point) annuities totalling 226 milliards, together with the equivalent in value of 12 per cent. of German exports, an addition 8 Op. cit. which brought the total fully up to the 269 milliards of Boulogne. It appears to have been implied, though it was never clearly stated, that the Paris demands referred solely to the future, no credit being given to Germany for the heavy payments in kind (put by her own experts at 20 milliards and by the Allies at less than half that) she had made since the Armistice. So much for the Paris Conference which met in the latter part of January, 1921. We now come to the "Conference that failed"-the London Conference of the first week of March, 1921. During the month preceding the meeting of this conference, press campaigns were carried on in both France and Germany; and in Germany there were held a series of public meetings, one of them at least addressed by Dr. Simons, the German Foreign Minister, himself, in which the German people were exhorted to "stand firm" and resist exorbitant demands. The natural consequences followed. An atmosphere was created that was highly unfavorable to a moderate and critical discussion of the German counter-proposals had they even been reasonable and adequate, which they were not. The German offer was of course rejected, the rejection being accompanied by an ultimatum. This was followed by the application of "sanctions" in the form of the military occupation of the Rhenish cities of Düsseldorf, Ruhrort and Duisburg early in March. Along with the imposition of the sanctions went a formal demand by the Reparation Commission for the payment of the balance of the amount due by May 1st under Article 235 of the Treaty of Versailles. This article requires Germany to pay "in such installments and in such manner (whether in commodities, ships, securities, or otherwise) as the Reparation Commission may fix, during 1919, 1920, and the first four months of 1921, the equivalent of 20,000,000,000 gold marks." Germany claimed that she had already delivered more than the equivalent of this amount, whereas the Allies insisted that there was still a balance due of about $3,000,000,000. The Germans also refused to pay 1,000,000,000 gold marks demanded on a certain date in March by the Reparation Commission. Further action appears to have been delayed by the result of the Silesian plebiscite, the menace of communistic outbreaks in Germany, and perhaps, also, by labor conditions in Great Britain. Various counterproposals were put forward in Germany, including one to rebuild the ruined area in France. She even appealed to the United States to act as a sort of an umpire or arbitrator; but while our Government did not refuse its good offices to the extent of transmitting the German counterproposals to the Allies, Germany was advised by our State Department that they were unacceptable and she was urged to submit "clear, definite, and adequate proposals which would in all respects meet her just obligations." The receipt of the Hughes note containing this advice was immediately followed by the fall of the German Cabinet, and the subsequent unconditional acceptance of the Allied ultimatum on May 10th (see first part of this editorial). This acceptance by Germany should not by any means be regarded as a settlement of the reparations question. It merely marks a breathing space or stage in what promises to be a long, tedious and complicated controversy. AMOS S. HERSHEY. GEORGE FRANCIS HAGERUP The death of George Francis Hagerup on February 8, 1921, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, was unexpected by his many friends throughout the world. He had been very active at the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva, less than two months before. Many in America were looking forward to his coming to this country in the near future. His coming was anticipated in 1914 when the outbreak of the war not merely prevented but placed new and heavy duties upon him in the service of his own state. At the time of his death he was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Norway to Sweden and to Belgium. He had also occupied with distinction other important diplomatic posts. His early education took Mr. Hagerup to the German and French universities. In 1879 he became a lecturer and six years later professor of law in the University of Christiania. He became Minister of Justice in 1893 and in 1895 became Premier, retaining the office for three years. Five years later when the relations between Norway and Sweden were strained, just before the dissolution of the Union, he was again called to head the Cabinet. He was a member of the Hague Court of Arbitration, and delegate plenipotentiary from Norway to the Second Hague Conference in 1907. Mr. Hagerup wrote on many legal topics both in international and in private law, showing particular interest in procedure and in penal law. He always took an active interest in the Institute of International Law, of which he was made a member in 1898 and of which he was President in 1912, when the session of the Institute was held at Christiania. He was also a member of other learned societies. Mr. Hagerup was the first member of the Norwegian delegation at the League of Nations Assembly in 1920, and took an active part in its deliberations as well as in the work of the committees. He was a member of the Committee on Technical Organization, and of the Committee on the Permanent Court. He was Chairman of the Sub-Committee of Jurists. He had also served as a member of the Committee of Jurisconsults which had previously drawn up the plan for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice for which provision was made in Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. His life was one of continued service to his state, but in the midst of all these important duties he found time to devote to his many friends and to further the broadest international policies looking to the wellbeing of the states of the world and of humanity. He recognized that much remained to be done, but in full confidence as to the ultimate outcome, he adopted as his own the words of Mirabeau: "Le droit deviendra un jour le souverain du monde." GEORGE GRAFTON WILSON THE MANDATE OVER YAP The Island of Yap is situated in the Pacific Ocean and is one of the Caroline group. Its southern extremity is in latitude 9° 25′ north, longitude 138° 1' east. Its shape is elongated with many projections and considerable bays, and at least one extensive harbor reaching some miles inland. Its area is 79 square miles. Its population in 1902 was 7,500, but stated in 1920 to be 7,155. It was among the islands sold by Spain to Germany by treaty of February 12, 1899, and which passed to the latter Power on October 1, 1899, for the payment of £840,000. The Germans made it the seat of their administration of the Western Caroline Islands, the Pelew Islands and the Marianne Islands. The chief export is copra, which, it may be well to say, is the dried kernel of the cocoanut broken up for export. It is north of the great island of New Guinea, which has over half a million people dwelling on it and which belongs to Holland and to Great Britain. It is almost directly east of the large southern island of the Philippines,-Mindanao. It is vastly more remote from Japan than from the Philippines. The above facts, it is hoped, are not without their importance, but the world-wide interest which centers in this island is due to the fact that the cable lines connecting San Francisco, Shanghai, New Guinea and the East Indian Islands cross at that point, which is, therefore, the crux of Pacific cable communication. The two German cable lines connecting New York with Germany were cut during the war, and diverted respectively by France to Brest and by Great Britain to Halifax. At the Congress on Communications, called in Washington in 1920, mainly to determine the disposition of the cables taken from Germany during the war, the United States insisted that the two above Atlantic cables should be returned to the possession of this country, and that the Far East line crossing the Pacific, by way of Yap, should be internationalized. A serious controversy arose and no final conclusions were reached, and the congress has, in the main, failed of its purpose. A temporary arrange |