Neue Freie Presse
- The First Step Toward Paneuro…:
- Polish Government Resigns Again.
- Viennese Art Exhibitions.
The Neue Freie Presse of 1 October 1926 opened with a Vienna editorial welcoming the new iron pact among German, French, Belgian and neighbouring producers. It admitted the cartel had its dangers but argued that splitting apart the coal of the Ruhr and the ore of Alsace-Lorraine had been folly, and that heavy industry's old chauvinism had given way to the view that continuing the war in peacetime would wreck European prosperity. From Warsaw came the news that Kazimierz Bartel's cabinet had resigned after the Sejm accepted Senate cuts to the provisional budget. Bartel had conferred with President Mościcki and Marshal Piłsudski before resigning, and the Sejm then rejected a left-wing motion to dissolve itself. The front page also carried the opening of a review of the Museum Friends' fifth exhibition, which covered medieval Austrian art, a field only recently opened up by researchers.
Translation
The First Step Toward Paneuro…:
Vienna, October 1. The iron pact is above all a work of peace. On the basis of last year's production, quotas are being allocated to Germany, France and Belgium and to the border territories, quotas that make steady work possible. We know ourselves to be free of any cartel romanticism, and the present agreement harbors dangers that should be neither denied nor concealed. But this much is clear: this treaty reveals the most complete psychological transformation, and it is happening precisely in heavy industry, where the wildest chauvinism could be felt on both sides. It showed itself in the plan to make the Ruhr serve French wishes, and in the idea of the Rhineland imperialists of keeping Longwy and Briey and, if possible, the Belgian coal works as well. Both illusions, both dreams, sprang from the natural feeling that coal and ore belong together economically, the Ruhr and Alsace-Lorraine, and that it is the greatest of follies to insert a forced dividing line and tear apart two indispensable resources that serve the same purpose, quite apart from the compulsory deliveries that the peace demanded. Both errors had to be lived out to the end, to use the phrase of a distinguished Austrian writer; every possibility of ruin had to be tried out and used up before the economic leaders of both states, before the great minds of industry, realized: there is no sense at all in pressing each other down; it would be madness to seek advantages in the other's harm; it would be a crime to continue the war even in peacetime and in this way shake the whole edifice of European prosperity. [?]
Polish Government Resigns Again.
[?] The Bartel government, after the Sejm in its afternoon session had approved the reduction of the expenditures of the provisional budget to 540 million zloty resolved by the state, submitted its resignation to the President of the Republic. The President accepted the resignation and entrusted the members of the government with carrying on current business. The Sejm session had opened amid general tension at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. After disposing of the Polish-Romanian trade treaty, the House began the debate on the provisional budget. When the amendments adopted by the Senate, which call for a reduction of the estimate to 450 million zloty, were passed by a small majority with the votes of the right-wing parties, Prime Minister Bartel rose and asked the Marshal of the Sejm to adjourn the session until half past 8 in the evening. The Marshal of the Sejm granted this request and adjourned the session amid general agitation. The Prime Minister then went to President Moscicki, with whom he conferred at length. After this conference, in which Marshal Pilsudski also took part, Prime Minister Bartel submitted the resignation of the entire cabinet. When, at the evening session of the Sejm, the Marshal of the Sejm announced that the government had resigned and that its resignation had been accepted by the President, the representatives of the left-wing parties moved that the Sejm resolve to dissolve itself. The motion was rejected, and a counter-motion opposing dissolution was adopted. The situation is now completely unclear. The next session of the Sejm will be convened in writing.
Viennese Art Exhibitions.
Viennese Art Exhibitions. II. The exhibition of medieval Heimat… fifth in the series organized by the Association of Museum Friends, is, if …ly not the artistically most valuable, yet from a …tain point of view the most interesting …of those so far. Not only to wider circles, but also to collectors and specialists it actually …for once conveys in a clear, comprehensive way closer acquaint… artists and works that – a few excep… – until quite recently were hardly or not at all … were. Only in recent years has a gr… of researchers occupied itself with this, and so it is clea… in this field can still be called problematic. In a slim little volume, "Oesterr… Malerei. Mittelalter" (Oesterreichisch… verlag 1926), Dr. F. Ottmann, the secretary of the Association of Museum Friends, has summarized concisely in … form what so far about it is… F. Kieslinger, art lover and [?], has published in the series "Artes Austriae" (Wi… verlag) a number of valuable things about sculpture. As a kind of supplement [?] this exhibition brings, the study by F. Reichmann that appeared in the Amalth…: "
Context
How the steel cartel's quota system actually worked
The editorial describes quotas allocated from the previous year's output to Germany, France, Belgium and the "border territories", and says these quotas would make steady work possible. The International Steel Agreement, created on 20 September 1926, was run by a council of industry representatives from Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It set production quotas every quarter, derived from the total output of the cartel's members. Each national group answered for its whole country's adherence to the quotas and had to pay the cartel 4 dollars for every ton produced above quota, a penalty that was soon judged too high and cut several times. The editorial concedes that the agreement carried dangers, and the quota system did come under strain almost at once. German works, whose recovery had been helped by the return of monetary stability from late 1924, exceeded their quota by 9 to 25 per cent between September and December 1926 and paid 2.7 million dollars in penalties. From early 1927 German producers were energetically demanding a revision of the quotas and threatening to leave the agreement.
Why coal and ore bound the Ruhr and Lorraine together
The paper's central argument is that coal and ore "belong together economically" and that it was folly to insert a forced dividing line between them. This rested on a real industrial dependence. France's steel industry relied heavily on German coke, because coal from northern and north-eastern France was only partly usable as coke and Lorraine coal could not be used for coke at all. The editorial's reference to the plan to make the Ruhr "serve French wishes" recalls the occupation of the Ruhr from 1923 to 1925. Meanwhile, the Dawes Plan of August 1924 indexed German reparations to Germany's economic performance, and in 1925 the northern French coalfield regained its 1913 level, loosening France's grip on German coal. The iron side of the bargain followed quickly. One of the cartel's first decisions, in October 1926, was an agreement on supplying raw iron to Germany that covered 10.5 per cent of German needs, reserving 7.46 per cent for Lorraine and 3.09 per cent for Luxembourg. According to the Financial Times, the cartel was a good means of absorbing the large surplus of Lorraine iron ore.
The steel pact as a "first step" toward European union
The headline, only partly legible, presents the pact as a first step toward a pan-European goal, and the editorial ends by warning against anything that would "shake the whole edifice of European prosperity". This matched a current of opinion at the time. In the 1920s international cartel agreements multiplied, and some European governments saw them as a first step toward closer economic cooperation between countries. In that spirit Gustav Stresemann said he hoped that other industries, "without stopping at national borders", would follow the example of the steel industry. Political cooperation had also revived with the Locarno Treaties of October 1925, and the steel agreement's founding text used the phrase "european economic union" amid the euphoria over Germany's entry into the League of Nations. Such hopes were only part of the story. The cartel's purpose was to sustain prices and divide up quotas, yet it was largely unsuccessful at fixing prices, and it did not survive the upheaval of the Great Depression that began in 1929. A less ambitious successor, limited to regulating exports, was set up in February 1933.
How the budget clash ended Bartel's third cabinet
The Warsaw report shows only the surface of a deeper conflict between the Sejm and the government installed after Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 coup, in which Bartel had become prime minister. Bartel's cabinet was already fragile. On 20 September 1926 the Christian Democrats carried a vote against two of his ministers, Antoni Sujkowski and Kazimierz Młodzianowski, whom they accused of political purges in the state administration, and the vote forced the cabinet to resign. Piłsudski then had President Mościcki reappoint Bartel, and that third cabinet lasted only four days. A later account of 30 September matches the paper's sequence: the Senate pressed its budget cuts, the Sejm passed them, and Bartel then went to Mościcki's residence. It adds, however, that Bartel carried a dissolution document that needed the president's signature, that Mościcki refused to sign it and told Bartel to step down, and that Bartel's place was to be taken by Piłsudski himself while the cabinet stayed intact. The paper's closing verdict that the situation was "completely unclear" was thus written shortly before Piłsudski himself succeeded Bartel as prime minister.
Original
Der erfte schritt zu Baneuro:
Wien, 1. Oktober. Der Eisenpakt ist vor allen Dingen ein Werk des Friedens. Auf Grund der Produktion des vorigen Jahres werden an Deutschland, Frankreich und Belgien und an die Randgebiete Quoten verteilt, die eine stabile Arbeit ermöglichen. Wir wissen uns frei von jeder Kartellromantik, und die jetzige Vereinbarung birgt Gefahren in sich, die weder geleugnet, noch verschwiegen werden sollen. Aber so viel ist klar: In diesem Vertrage offenbart sich die vollkommenste psychologische Veränderung, und das geschieht gerade der Schwerindustrie, wo der wildeste Chauvinismus auf beiden Seiten zu spüren war. Er zeigte in dem Plane, das Ruhrgebiet französischen Wünschen dienstbar zu machen, und in der Idee der Imperialisten des Rheinlandes, Longwy und Briey zu behalten und womöglich noch die belgischen Kohlenwerke. Beide Illusionen, beide Träume, sie entsprangen dem natürlichen Gefühl, daß Kohle und Erz wirtschaftlich zusammengehören, Ruhrgebiet und Elsaß-Lothringen, und daß es der Narrheiten größte ist, eine Zwangslinie einzuschalten und zwei unentbehrliche Hilfsmittel, die gleichem Zwecke dienen, auseinanderzureißen, abgesehen von den Pflichtlieferungen, welche der Friede gefordert hat. Beide Irrtümer mußten zerlebt werden, um das Wort eines bedeutenden österreichischen Schriftstellers zu gebrauchen, alle Möglichkeiten des Verderbens mußten abgeprobt und abgebraucht sein, ehe die wirtschaftlichen Führer beider Staaten, ehe die industriellen Großköpfe einsahen: Es hat gar keinen Sinn, sich gegenseitig niederzupressen, es wäre Wahnsinn, Vorteile im Schaden des anderen zu suchen; es wäre Verbrechen, den Krieg auch noch im Frieden fortzusetzen und auf diese Weise das ganze Gebäude der europäischen Prosperität zu erschüttern. [?]
Neuerliche Demission der polnischen Regierung.
[?] Die Regierung Bartel hat, nachdem der Sejm in seiner Nachmittagssitzung der vom Staat beschlossenen Herabsetzung der Ausgaben des Budgetprovisoriums auf 540 Millionen Zloty zugestimmt hatte, dem Staatspräsidenten die Demission überreicht. Der Präsident hat die Demission angenommen und die Mitglieder der Regierung mit der Weiterführung der Geschäfte betraut. Die Sitzung des Sejms hatte unter allgemeiner Spannung um 4 Uhr nachmittags begonnen. Nach Erledigung des polnisch-rumänischen Handelsvertrages begann das Haus die Debatte über das Budgetprovisorium. Als die vom Senat beschlossenen Amendements, die eine Herabsetzung des Voranschlages auf 450 Millionen Zloty verlangen, mit den Stimmen der Rechtsparteien mit einer kleinen Mehrheit angenommen wurden, erhob sich Ministerpräsident Bartel und ersuchte den Sejmmarschall, die Sitzung bis halb 9 Uhr abends zu unterbrechen. Der Sejmmarschall stimmte diesem Verlangen zu und unterbrach die Sitzung unter allgemeiner Erregung. Der Ministerpräsident begab sich hierauf zum Präsidenten Moscicki, mit dem er längere Zeit konferierte. Nach dieser Konferenz, an der auch Marschall Pilsudski teilnahm, überreichte Ministerpräsident Bartel die Demission des Gesamtkabinetts. Als in der Abendsitzung des Sejm der Sejmmarschall mitteilte, daß die Regierung ihre Demission gegeben habe und diese vom Präsidenten angenommen wurde, stellten die Vertreter der Linksparteien den Antrag, der Sejm möge beschließen, sich aufzulösen. Der Antrag wurde abgelehnt und ein Gegenantrag, der sich gegen die Auflösung ausspricht, angenommen. Die Lage ist nun vollkommen ungeklärt. Die nächste Sitzung des Sejms wird auf schriftlichem Wege einberufen werden.
Wiener Kunstausstellungen.
Wiener Kunstausstellungen. II. Die Ausstellung mittelalterlicher Heimat fünfte in der Reihe der vom Verein der Museumsfreunde veranstaltete, ist, wenn leicht nicht die künstlerisch wertvollste, doch von stimmten Gesichtspunkte aus die interessanteste herigen. Nicht nur weiteren Kreisen, sondern Sammlern und Fachleuten vermittelt sie eigentlich mal in übersichtlicher Weise die nähere Bekan Künstlern und Werken, die - wenige ausge bis vor recht kurzer Zeit noch kaum oder gar n waren. Erst in den letzten Jahren hat sich ein gr von Forschern damit beschäftigt, und so ist es kla auf diesem Gebiet noch problematisch genannt w In einem schlanken Bändchen: " Oesterr Malerei. Mittelalter " (Oesterreichisch verlag 1926), hat Dr. F. Ottmann, der Sekretär des Vereines der Museumsfreunde, i Form knapp zusammengefaßt, was bis jetzt darü ist. F. Kieslinger, Kunstfreund und [?] hat in der Serie " Artes Austriae " (Wi verlag) manches Schätzenswerte über die Plastik veröffentlicht. Gewissermaßen als Ergänzung [?] diese Ausstellung bringt, kann die im Amalth schienene Studie von F. Reichmann: "