THE ALLIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1922, Page 5

THE ALLIES.

STEP TOWARDS UNITY. CLEARING-HOUSE DEBTS. • MATTER SETTLED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Aug. 15, 5.5 p.m. London, August IL The clearing-house debts question has been settled by the conference adopting the expert committees proposal that Germany must pay the rwo million sterling due on August 15 within four weeks, and thereafter the various Governments will arrange separately with Germany regarding their national debts, subject to the reparations commission’s approval. MM. Poincare* and Theunis declared that the proposals involved the sacri- I flee of a principle, but agreed to them ' for the sake of Allied unity.—Reuter | Service. ANOTHER SIGN OF UNITY. M. POINCARE JOINS THE OTHERS. LLOYD GEORGE’S WEEK-END. Received Aug. 15, 7 p.m. London. August 14. Fear that a breakdown of the conference would involve a breach of the Entente was allayed by the fact that M. Poincare subsequently joined the others in considering the Austrian question, which was referred to the League of Nations. A piquant side issue of the conference was Mr. Lloyd George’s explanation why he spent xhe week-end in the country, regarding which there had been ( heated French criticism. He said he I hoped the delegates did not misunderstand the motive. He said there was strong feeling in Britain against public work on Sunday, and unless the situation urgently demanded it he thought the experts needed a rest, and delegates would wrestle with the problems better after a respite. NO RUPTURE OF ENTENTE. STATEMENT BY M. POINCARE. EFFORTS TO PREVENT BREACH. Received Aug. 15, 1015 pan. London, August 15. M. Poincare, in the course of a lengthy verbal statement, said he wanted to insist that there was no rupture of the Entente, and if French opinion thought Britain wished to impose her will on France it would have deep sorrow and a cruel awakening. If France took back her liberty of action it would inevitably smash the Entente, “which for thirty-five years I have fostered and worked for, and I will do everything possible that I can to prevent such a disaster.” The Daily Express says editoriav*; — “For three years the appearance or in-ter-Allied unity has been maintained by a series of compromises, but this time no compromise between England’s economic and France's political outlooks is possible. We shall continue to hope till the twelfth hour that France will take counsel with reason and sobriety and not act separately against her own best interests.”

AN IMPASSE REACHED. A BREAKDOWN THREATENED. London, August 14. The conference broke down, and will meet again in the evening. At the morning meeting of the Allied Premiers a proposal by Signor Scljanzer and Count Hayashi was made, according to a French source, that a provisional moratorium should be granted now and the final decision taken in three months, but M. Poincare absolutely opposed any moratorium without guarantees. The attitude on the question of Allied control of German forests and the mines of the Rhineland and the Ruhr led to an impasse. Mr. Lloyd George made a supreme effort to arrive at an understanding, the Italians and Belgians strenuously endeavoring to secure a renewal of the conference, but M. Poincare remains unmoved. He has provisionally arranged to leave for France to-morrow. The Reparations Commission has suspended the German payment due to-day pending deliberation. FRANCE AND LLOYD GEORGE. MORE PRESS COMMENT. Received Aug. 15, 11.30 p.m. Paris, August 15. Le Temps considers Mr. Uoyd George is attempting to carry out the traditional British policy of preventing the formation of a Contmentai bloc. The paper adds: “He is said to be afraid of French hegemony on the European Continent, but it is not necessary that one State should dominate all the others in order to form a bloc, which would be constituted naturally if all nations were afflicted and threatened with one and the same economic ruin. Mr. Lloyd George’s policy is leading to this ruin.” Le Gaulois criticises the present publication of Mr. Uoyd George’s memoirs, and says: “Mr. Uoyd George’s promises, amid the fever of power and the din of battle, a work that seemed to demand long hesitation and the laborious leisure of retirement. His diplomatic history, which will obviously be that of his reign, is being written before the moment of his abdication or fall”