the White House announcement stated that "it is the desire of the Administration that the Dawes plan should be put into effect as speedily as possible. This is the first essential step to economic recovery abroad in which this country is vitally interested."

On the whole, it seems hopeful that the universal conscience, to which Chairman Dawes appeals in his letter of April 9 transmitting the plan of his committee to the Reparation Commission, will agree with him that it is based "upon those principles of justice, fairness, and mutual interest, in the supremacy of which not only the creditors of Germany and Germany herself, but the world, has a vital and enduring concern."

II

THE LONDON CONFERENCE ON THE
APPLICATION OF THE DAWES PLAN1
By GEORGE A. FINCH

[Reprinted from The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 18, No. 4, October, 1924]

The Dawes plan for recovering the reparation debt of Germany to the Allies under the Treaty of Versailles was accepted by all of the interested parties at London on August 16, 1924, and certain agreements necessary to enable the plan to be brought into operation were drawn up and initialed. Formal signatures to them were attached on August 30 after the French Parliament had approved the work of the conference on August 24 and 26, and the laws for carrying the plan into effect had been passed by the German Reichstag on August 29. The process of putting the plan into operation was thereupon promptly started. Immediately after the signatures had been attached on August 30, the French Government issued instructions for the evacuation of a section of the Ruhr, and the Reparation Commission on the same day announced the appointment of the principal officials who are to administer the plan, namely, the Agent General for Reparation Payments, Mr. Owen D. Young of the United States, ad interim (the appointment of Mr. Seymour Parker Gilbert, formerly Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, as the permanent Agent General was announced September 4); Trustee of the Railway Bonds, M. Delacroix of Belgium; Trustee of the Industrial Debentures, Signor Nogara of Italy; Commissioner of Controlled

1 The official proceedings of the conference are not available at the time of writing this article. For the facts and information contained herein, use has been made of the London Times for July and August and the first half of September, especially the daily account of the conference published during its sessions.

Revenue, Mr. Andrew McFadyean of Great Britain. Two days later, namely, on September 1, the first installment of twenty million (20,000,000) gold marks, due from Germany under the plan, was paid to the Agent General for Reparation Payments, and the second installment was promptly paid ten days later. On September 4, the restrictions placed upon the movement of persons, goods and vehicles between occupied and unoccupied Germany were removed, and four days later the eastern customs line between the same territories was abolished. On September 10, the first of the Ruhr political prisoners were set at liberty.

Negotiations lasting exactly one month were required to reach the agreements for putting the Dawes plan into operation. The London Conference opened on July 16 and the agreements were completed and ready for signature on August 16. In its organization and procedure the conference resembled in some respects the conference at Versailles in 1919. It was divided into two stages, first, the discussions between the Allies, and secondly, the negotiations with the Germans. In the first stage, the Allied countries having a direct interest in reparation payments by Germany took part, namely, Belgium, British Empire (with the British Dominions and India represented by one delegate alternating on the panel system), France and Italy, who were represented by their Prime Ministers, Greece, Japan, Portugal, Rumania and the Serb-CroatSlovene State, who were represented by their diplomatic envoys at London. The United States was represented by its ambassador at London, with especially limited powers, but he did not sign any of the agreements.

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the British Premier, was elected President, and Sir Maurice Hankey, SecretaryGeneral. The program adopted was contained in a FrancoBritish memorandum of July 9,2 and the topics on it

2 Printed in British parliamentary paper, Misc. No. 12 (1924). For the correspondence concerning a previous program which met with vigorous opposition in France, see Misc. No. 10 (1924).

were assigned to three committees to consider and report, respectively, upon first, the procedure of declaring Germany in default under the Dawes plan, and the measures to be taken in such event; second, a plan by which German economic and fiscal unity should be restored; third, methods of making transfers of payments and deliveries in kind from Germany to the creditor countries. A legal committee was later appointed to report upon the proper arrangements to be made with Germany for putting the Dawes report into operation without running counter to the Treaty of Versailles, and upon provisions for modifying the Dawes report, if necessary, and interpreting it after it became operative.

The work of the committees was finished and their reports approved on August 2, when an invitation was sent to Germany to attend the conference. The second stage began on August 5 when the German delegation, headed by Chancellor Marx, arrived; but here the resemblance to the Versailles Conference disappeared. Mr. MacDonald informed the Germans that there was a common desire to attach signatures only after discussions in which every party had been fairly heard. He handed them copies of the committee reports previously agreed upon and invited them to submit comments in writing. After this was done, the German comments were classified and referred to the original committees of the conference, which were reconstituted with German members to deal with the German emendations. In summarizing the work of the conference at its closing session on August 16 Mr. MacDonald referred to this phase of it as follows:

I believe we have given Europe something better than an agreement drafted by lawyers and printed on paper-we all negotiated, discussed, put ourselves in each other's shoes. That is the greatest advance we

The text of the reports of the first and third committees is printed in the London Times, Aug. 4, 1924, p. 13. A summary of the report of the second committee is printed in the Times, July 29, p. 12. The text of two reports by the committee of jurists is printed in the Times, July 29, p. 14, and Aug.

4. p. 13.

have made, even when, in the end, one side or the other
has been disappointed with the result. We are now
offering the first really negotiated agreement since
the war; every party here represented is morally bound
to do its best to carry it out, because it is not the re-
sult of an ultimatum. We have tried to meet each other
as far as the public opinion of the various countries
would allow us. This agreement may be regarded
as the first Peace Treaty, because we sign it with a
feeling that we have turned our backs on the terrible
years of war and war mentality."

The conference had to deal with numerous questions, some of an intricate technical nature involved in the practical operation of the Dawes plan, which could be and were solved by the experts on the committees, and others of an important political character which could only be decided by the heads of government in council. In the Inter-Allied stage of the conference, the question of declaring a German default in the execution of the Dawes plan was the most difficult to solve. The British Government entered the conference in its antipathetic attitude toward the Reparation Commission, and seemed determined that the commission should not be vested with the power of declaring Germany in default under the Dawes plan, which it was argued exceeded the peace treaty provisions in the matter of deliveries in kind. France seemed equally determined to maintain the powers vested in the Reparation Commission by the Treaty of Versailles, seeking to keep the Dawes Committee within the position which it technically occupied, namely, that of a subordinate agency appointed by the Reparation Commission.

During the second stage of the conference, the overshadowing question was the military evacuation of the Ruhr. The German delegates naturally wished this to come about as soon as possible, and suggested six months as the maximum period during which evacuation should be accomplished. The British Government, although it did not take a formal part in these negotiations, informally London Times, August 18, 1924, p. 16.