Prager Tagblatt
- Bearish on Poincaré.
- Poincaré Has No Confidence in Germany.
- Baldwin Rebukes the Mine Owners.
The Prager Tagblatt of September 28, 1926 examined the financial and political strains surrounding reconciliation between France and Germany. Its editorial challenged confidence in Poincaré’s financial rehabilitation and presented American lending as central to the proposed bargain. A Paris report described his defense of austerity and insistence on French innocence in the war. A London report recounted Baldwin’s attack on the mine owners and his claim that the government could compel neither side to settle the coal dispute.
Translation
Bearish on Poincaré.
[?] even interest rates on house mortgages already at 12 to 18 percent, a phenomenon quite familiar to the inflation-stricken countries of Central Europe.
His most faithful supporters, the great financiers, therefore no longer believe that financial rehabilitation will succeed; they rate his chances poorly; they are, as the stock exchange puts it, bearish on Poincaré. All markets—the coffee market no less than the grain and property markets—are bearish on this great ministry. Among the broad ranks of the unsuspecting bourgeoisie, his skillful newspaper publicity through a press devoted to him still gives him the reputation of France’s great providential savior. The French citizen may sometimes shake his head when he reads in the newspaper that Poincaré agrees to Briand’s plan to shorten the occupation periods laid down in the Treaty of Versailles, which he holds sacred, and to return the Saar; yet on this point too, the hardships of the times have made the Frenchman more understanding. Under the existing treaties, the grandchildren of the infants now being brought up with the barest necessities in the crowded housing of the suburbs will still have to pay interest to the grandchildren of the Wall Street bankers who already hold mortgages on the value of the labor of Europe’s generations from 1970 to the year 2000.
Poincaré does what he can. He cuts the civil service and pays those he retains miserable salaries, which, in the lower grades, mostly fall below 1,500 francs and 1,200 francs a month for married employees. A large foreign loan for financial rehabilitation is now being planned, preferably in America. In financial terms, the essence of the Stresemann–Briand agreement is that America, to which our continent currently owes about six billion dollars—or roughly 200 billion Czechoslovak crowns—is to lend France and Germany jointly another one to two billion gold marks.
Poincaré Has No Confidence in Germany.
He demands proof of [?] no easing of vigilance [?]
Paris, September 27. The eagerly awaited speech that Poincaré delivered at midday today in Bar-le-Duc, at the opening session of his department’s General Council, was devoted overwhelmingly to domestic political problems. Poincaré first gave a detailed account of the financial difficulties he had found on taking office, in order to defend his policy of retrenchment, which has come under particularly sharp criticism in recent days. Even in this part of his speech, as in his speech on Sunday, Poincaré could not resist the temptation to bring in the question of war guilt and renew his protestations of his own innocence. The first time, he portrayed the ruin of French finances as the consequence of a war imposed on France by the former Central European states and of the failure to receive reparations whose payment Germany had delayed for several years. The second time, he again declared that France bore no responsibility whatsoever for what had happened and had no guilt with which to reproach itself, having merely been the victim of an attack. Only at the end of his speech did Poincaré turn to foreign policy problems. [?]
Baldwin Rebukes the Mine Owners.
[?] “Stupidity, incompetence, discourtesy” an emergency[?]
London, September 27. Today’s discussion of the coal strike in the House of Commons, attended by the executive of the miners’ union, developed into a fierce indictment of the mine owners and of the government’s inconsistent conduct.
Baldwin, well rested after his stay in Aix-les-Bains, gave an account of how many mediation proposals the miners had rejected since August 1925. The negotiations Churchill had conducted with MacDonald and the miners had filled him with fresh hope, he said, but the stupidity, incompetence and discourtesy of the mine owners, who had refused to take part in discussions with the government and the miners, had dashed those hopes.
Baldwin then lamented that the government had no power to compel the mine owners to accept a compromise, just as it could not force the miners to go down the pits for fair wages if they refused.
MacDonald devoted most of his speech to demonstrating that he would never have induced the miners to make the government an offer of negotiations…
Context
Why financial recovery made rapprochement attractive
French monetary instability gave rapprochement an immediate financial purpose. A Banque de France study published in 2024 describes the political and monetary crisis of 1926 and Poincaré’s attempt to restore stability by restructuring public debt. The September 27, 1926 issue of the Darmstädter Zeitung reported financial newspapers’ insistence that stabilization required British and American help. It also observed that discussion of rapprochement with Germany quickly turned to relations with Britain and America. This explains the financial logic of the Prager Tagblatt editorial: it links concessions over occupation and the Saar to the prospect of fresh American lending. Its image of future generations’ labor already mortgaged to creditors turns the proposed diplomatic bargain into a question of who would finance recovery and how long the burden would last.
Poincaré’s conditions for reconciliation
Poincaré’s argument connected France’s financial burdens to wartime responsibility and German reparations while making reconciliation conditional on security. The selected report describes his claim that imposed war and delayed reparations had wrecked French finances. A September 29 Evening Star dispatch about the same speech also reported that he was ready for rapprochement if it accorded with France’s treaties and was justified by proof of German disarmament, while maintaining his accusation against the Imperial German government. These conditions explain the tension between the two French stories on the page: the editorial presents financial reasons for accommodation, while the speech report emphasizes the claims and safeguards Poincaré intended to retain. Negotiation, in his stated position, could proceed without abandoning treaty rights, vigilance or his account of responsibility for the war.
Mediation and the government’s responsibility
The coal report exposes the gap between bringing parties to negotiations and securing their agreement. Baldwin blamed the owners for refusing discussions but claimed that the government could neither compel them to accept a compromise nor force unwilling miners back underground. This defense remained contested: in the Commons debate of October 25, a critic argued that the government’s provision of more than £20 million to colliery owners in July 1925 had created a national responsibility it could not abandon. That later intervention clarifies the institutional dispute already visible in September. The question was whether the limits of voluntary mediation exhausted the government’s role, or whether its financial intervention obliged it to seek further means of settlement.
Original
Flan auf Boincare.
[?] auch schon Hypotheken auf Häuser 12 bis 18 Prozent, eine Erscheinung, die den mitteleuropäischen Inflationsländern wohl vertraut ist. Seine treuesten Anhänger, die großen Finanzleute, glauben also nicht mehr an den Erfolg der Sanierung, sie schätzen seine Chancen gering ein, sie sind, wie es in der Börsensprache heißt, flau auf Poincaré. Alle Märkte, der Kaffeemarkt ebenso wie der Getreidemarkt und der Realitätenmarkt sind flau für dieses große Ministerium. Im breiten Publikum der ahnungslosen Bourgeoisie gilt er infolge seiner geschickten Zeitungsreklame durch die ihm ergebene Presse noch immer als der providentielle große Mann Frankreichs. Der französische Bürger mag wohl manchmal den Kopf schütteln, wenn er in der Zeitung liest, daß Poincaré dem Briandschen Plan zustimmt, die Besetzungsfristen des ihm heiligen Versailler Vertrags zu kürzen und die Saar zurückzugeben, allein auch in diesem Punkt ist der Franzose durch die Not. der Zeit einsichtiger geworden, Nach den bestehenden Verträgen müssen die Enkel der Säuglinge, die man heute in den Massenquartieren der Vorstädte notdürftig aufzüchtet, nöch Zinsen zahlen an die Enkel der WallstreetBankiers, die heute schon Hypotheken besitzen auf den Arbeitswert der europäischen Generationen von 1970 bis zum Jahre 2000. Poincaré tut, was er kann. Er baut die Beamten ab, gibt ihnen, soweit er sie behält, elende Gehalte, die sich in den subalternen Graden für Verheiratete zumeist unter 1500 Francs und 1200 Francs monatlich bewegen. Gegenwärtig plant man eine große Sanierungsanleihe im Auslande, am liebsten in Amerika. Finanziell ausgedrückt besteht das Essentielle der Vereinbarung Stresemann-Briand darin, daß Amerika, dem unser Erdteil gegenwärtig etwa sechs Milliarden Dollars - also rund 200 Milliarden Tschechkronen - schuldet an Frankreich und Deutschland gemeinschaftlich noch ein bis zwei Milliarden Goldmark borgen soll.
Boincare hat fein Vertrauen zu Deutschland.
Er verlangt Beweise der [?] in der Wachsamkeit nicht nach [?] Paris, 27. September. Die mit großer Spannung erwartete Rede, die Poincaré heute mittag in Bar-le-Duc anläßlich der Eröffnung des Generalrates seines Departements gehalten hat, war zum weitaus größten Teil den innerpolitischen Problemen gewidmet. Poincaré gab zunächst ein eingehendes Bild über die finanziellen Schwierigkeiten, die er bei Uebernahme der Regierung vorgefunden hat, um seine gerade in den letzten Tagen sehr scharf kritisierte Politik der Restriktion zu verteidigen. Schon in diesem Teile seiner Rede konnte Poincaré, ähnlich wie in seiner Rede am Sonntag, der Versuchung nicht widerstehen, durch Einschaltung der Kriegsschuldfrage die Beteuerung seiner eigenen Unschuld zu erneuern. Das erstemal, indem er die Zerrüttung der französischen Finanzen als die Folge eines Krieges, der Frankreich durch die ehemaligen zentraleuropäischen Staaten auferlegt worden sei und des Ausfalles der Reparationsleistungen, deren Zahlung Deutschland um mehrere Jahre verzögert hat, darstellte, das zweitemal, indem er die erneute Erklärung gab, daß Frankreich bei dem Geschehenen keinerlei Verantwortung trage und sich keinerlei Schuld vorzuwerfen habe, daß es lediglich das Opfer eines Angriffes gewesen sei. Erst am Schlusse seiner Rede kam Poincaré auf die außenpolitischen Probleme zu sprechen. [?]
Baldwin tadelt die Grubenbesitzer.
[?] " Dummheit, Unfähigkeit, Unhöflichkeit " einem Ausnahm [?] London, 27. September. Die heutige Aussprache im Unterhaus über den Kohlenstreik, die im Beisein des Vorstandes der Bergarbeitergewerkschaft stattfand, entwickelte sich zu einer heftigen Anklage gegen die Grubenbesitzer und gegen die inkonsequente Haltung der Regierung. Baldwin, der sich in Aix les Bains gut erholt hat, setzte in einer Uebersicht auseinander, wieviele Vermittlungsvorschläge die Bergarbeiter seit August 1925 abgelehnt hätten. Die Verhandlungen, die Churchill mit MacDonald und den Bergarbeitern geführt habe, hätten ihn mit neuen Hoffnungen erfüllt, aber die Dummheit, Unfähigkeit und Unhöflichkeit der Grubenbesitzer, die sich geweigert hätten, an den Besprechungen mit der Regierung und den Bergarbeitern teilzunehmen, hätten diese Hoffnungen zuschanden werden lassen. Baldwin beklagte dann, daß der Regierung nicht die Befugnis zustehe, die Grubenbesitzer zur Annahme eines Kompromisses zu nötigen, so wie sie auch die Bergarbeiter nicht zwingen könne; zu gerechten Löhnen einzufahren, wenn diese ablehnten. MacDonald verwendete den größten Teil seiner Rede darauf, nachzuweisen, daß er die Bergarbeiter niemals veranlaßt haben würde, der Regierung ein Verhandlungsangebot zu