Neue Freie Presse
- Sensational Statements from the House of Morgan.
- For a Revision of the Dawes Plan. — Proposal for an International Financial Conference.
- The Duke of Reichstadt at the Burgtheater.
The Vienna Neue Freie Presse of 3 October 1926 gave its front page to an interview with Thomas W. Lamont of J. P. Morgan & Co., given to one of the paper's correspondents at Newport in mid-September. Lamont called the Dawes Plan the crux of Europe's financial problem. He argued that German payments could help stabilize the French and Belgian currencies, but that deliveries in kind would, over time, drag down both the European and the American economies. He praised Germany's recovery, built on its own energy and mostly American capital, pointed to the strong American demand for German industrial bonds and expected more loans on better terms. He declared that a revision of the plan was necessary, and the headline added a proposal for an international financial conference. In the feuilleton on the same page, a critic complained that for months politics had been threatening to entangle the Burgtheater's production of Rostand's play about Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt. This reading is limited to the selected excerpts and does not include the rest of each article.
Translation
Sensational Statements from the House of Morgan.
By Thomas M. Lamont. Associate of the firm J. The following remarks are of the highest importance, politically as well as economically. The proposal that Th. W. Lamont makes in them, and the declarations he issues in the name of America, may well bring about a decisive turning point in the development of the general economic situation. As one of the foremost financiers in the world, as the most eminent authority on American banking, and as Morgan's associate and adviser, Lamont is the person best qualified to judge the great problems that he discussed in conversation with one of our correspondents.
Newport, mid-September. In my view, the Dawes Report and its probable effects are today the crux of the whole European financial problem. For, first, the payments under the Dawes Report can be used in some form to stabilize the currencies of France and Belgium, and second, a permanent, consistent execution of the provisions of this report, especially the provisions on deliveries in kind, would mean the gradual decline of the European and therefore also of the American economy. From everything I can learn, there is no question that Germany is, in and of itself, in a position to meet those obligations under the Dawes Report…
For a Revision of the Dawes Plan. — Proposal for an International Financial Conference.
…mas M. Lamont. Firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. …two years, through its own energy and with the ample funds that have flowed to it from foreign, mostly American, sources, it has made enormous progress, and today, in the American view, it stands in first place on the European continent as regards productive capacity, sales, and the soundness of its foundations and its development. The fact that German industrial bonds are not only in great demand among American bankers but can also be placed on the American market on ever better terms is the best proof that in America this view is also confirmed by the facts. I expect that in the coming months still more German loans will be concluded in America, and indeed on even better terms than before. American finance and the bankers here take the greatest interest in capital investment in Germany, which, given our great caution in international financial matters, would not be the case if the conviction did not prevail that the German economy is sound and trustworthy. A revision of the Dawes Plan is necessary.
The Duke of Reichstadt at the Burgtheater.
Feuilleton. The Duke of Reichstadt at the Burgtheater. Nothing is more vexing than when the spirit of politics seizes upon an artistic question and, devoid of spirit as this spirit simply is, tries to drag it down from the sphere of pure contemplation into that murky fog of opinion. Such a fate has now been threatening Rostand's Duke of Reichstadt for months, and it is perhaps something more than chance that it is precisely this play that it threatens. After all, the poor young duke, who carried two battlefields, Aspern and Wagram, in his far too narrow breast, could not satisfy any party even in his lifetime, neither the Habsburgs nor their enemies. Painfully torn back and forth by opposing, indeed mortally hostile convictions, he ended his barely blossomed life in utter inner division. Now this tragic lot seems to await the play as well, from which his delicate figure, conjured by the wordy magic of the French poet, rises once more like a ghost into the light. In French a ghost is called, far less ghostly, a "revenant," and such a one who returns, who has come back at the wrong time, is the unhappy prince too, who can find rest nowhere, not…
Context
What was the Dawes Plan that Lamont called the crux of Europe's finances?
The plan Lamont discusses came out of the reparations deadlock after the First World War. When Germany defaulted on a payment in January 1923, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr, and German inflation spiralled into hyperinflation. A committee chaired by the Chicago banker Charles G. Dawes presented its proposal in April 1924. Under its scheme, Germany's annual payments were reduced but were to rise as its economy improved, while the total to be paid was left undetermined. This open-ended, rising schedule helps explain why Lamont treats the plan's 'probable effects' as the central question in 1926: the obligations were still set to grow. The official U.S. history also describes a circular flow in which Allied governments used their reparation receipts from Germany to service their war debts to the United States. That link is the background to Lamont's suggestion that the payments could be used to stabilize the French and Belgian currencies. His warning that sustained deliveries in kind would gradually drag down both the European and the American economies was the core of his case for revising the plan.
Why did Lamont's word carry weight on German reparations?
The newspaper presents Lamont as Morgan's associate and the best-qualified judge of these questions. Thomas W. Lamont had become a partner of J.P. Morgan & Co. on 1 January 1911. He was one of the Treasury Department's representatives at the Paris Peace Conference, where they had to help determine what Germany would pay in reparations. He also took part in the committees that drew up the 1924 Dawes Plan and, later, the 1929 Young Plan. In the interwar years he acted as the Morgan firm's spokesman, so an interview like this one was part of his normal role. Morgan also had a direct stake in the system he was assessing: J. P. Morgan floated the 1924 Dawes loan to Germany on the American market. In calling for a revision in 1926, Lamont was reconsidering an arrangement he had helped design and finance. A revision did come three years later with the Young Plan, which reduced the total demanded of Germany and ended foreign supervision of German finances.
How far did American lending really carry Germany's recovery?
In the second excerpt, Lamont attributes Germany's progress to its own energy and to ample funds, mostly American. He cites the ever-better terms on which German industrial bonds could be placed on the American market as proof of confidence. The State Department's official history shows that this flow mattered to the whole reparations system. Over the four years after the Dawes Plan, U.S. banks continued to lend Germany enough money to meet its reparation payments to countries such as France and Britain, which in turn used those payments to service their war debts to the United States. The American lending behind the recovery Lamont praised therefore also kept the chain of reparations and war-debt payments moving. The same source notes that loans from U.S. banks helped prop up the German economy until 1928; when they dried up, Germany's economy floundered. As the Depression deepened, a one-year moratorium on debt and reparation payments was declared in 1931 at President Hoover's behest, and at the Lausanne Conference in 1932 the European powers agreed to cancel their reparation claims against Germany, save for a final payment. Lamont's expectation of further German borrowing in America held for roughly two more years, but the economy he called sound and trustworthy faltered once that lending stopped.
Who was the Duke of Reichstadt, and why was Rostand's play a sensitive subject in Vienna?
The feuilleton is about Rostand's 'L'Aiglon', a six-act play about Napoleon II, the son of Napoleon I and Marie Louise, daughter of the Austrian emperor Francis. Rostand wrote it specifically for Sarah Bernhardt, who played the title role at its premiere in 1900. After his father's fall, the boy lived the rest of his life in Vienna, and in 1818 his grandfather, Emperor Francis, made him Duke of Reichstadt. Metternich allowed him no political role and used him in bargaining with France. He died of tuberculosis at Schönbrunn in 1832, aged 21. In the play, he slips away to the battlefield of Wagram and has visions of his father's triumphs before Metternich's police recapture him. His double descent, Bonaparte and Habsburg, lies behind the critic's image of a duke who carried two battlefields in his narrow breast and could satisfy neither the Habsburgs nor their enemies. A French play about a Bonaparte heir held under Habsburg control was sensitive material for a Viennese stage, and the critic sees the young man's divided fate repeating itself in the play's reception. He says political controversy had been threatening the production for months, but the excerpt does not say what that 1926 dispute involved.
Original
Sensationelle Mitteilungen des Hauses Morgan.
Von Thomas M. Lamont. Mitarbeiter der Firma J. Die folgenden Ausführungen sind politisch ebenso wie wirtschaftlich von der höchsten Bedeutung. Der Vorschlag, den Th. W. Lamont darin macht, und die Erklärungen, die er im Namen Amerikas abgibt, können geradezu einen entscheidenden Wendepunkt in der Entwicklung der allgemeinen ökonomischen Lage zur Folge haben. Lamont ist als einer der ersten Finanzmänner der Welt, als hervorragendster Kenner des amerikanischen Bankwesens und als Mitarbeiter und Berater Morgans der berufenste Beurteiler der großen Probleme, die er im Gespräche mit einem unserer Mitarbeiter erörtert hat. Newport, Mitte September. Nach meiner Ansicht sind das Dawes-Gutachten und seine wahrscheinlichen Auswirkungen heute der Kernpunkt des ganzen europäischen Finanzproblems. Denn erstens können die Zahlungen aus dem Dawes-Gutachten in irgendeiner Form verwendet werden, um die Währungen Frankreichs und Belgiens zu stabilisieren, und zweitens würde eine dauernde, konsequente Durchführung der Bestimmungen dieses Gutachtens, besonders der Bestimmungen über die Sachleistungen, den allmählichen Rückgang der europäischen und somit auch der amerikanischen Wirtschaft bedeuten. Es steht nach allem, was ich erfahren kann, außer Frage, daß Deutschland an und für sich in der Lage ist jenen Verpflichtungen aus dem Dawes-Gutachten nach -
Für eine Revision des Dawes-Planes. — Vorschlag einer internationalen Finanzkonferenz.
mas M. Lamont. Firma J. P. Morgan & Co. zwei Jahren durch eigene Tatkraft und mit den reichlichen Geldmitteln, die ihr aus ausländischen, meistens amerikanischen Quellen zugeflossen sind, gewaltige Fortschritte gemacht und steht heute auf dem europäischen Kontinent, was die Leistungsfähigkeit, den Absatz und die Gesundheit der Grundlagen und der Entwicklung betrifft, nach amerikanischer Ansicht an erster Stelle. Die Tatsache, daß deutsche Industrieobligationen von den amerikanischen Bankers nicht nur sehr begehrt werden, sondern auch auf dem amerikanischen Markt zu stets besseren Bedingungen untergebracht werden können, ist der beste Beweis dafür, daß diese Ansicht in Amerika auch durch die Tatsachen bestätigt wird. Ich erwarte, daß in den kommenden Monaten noch mehr deutsche Anleihen in Amerika zustandekommen werden, und zwar zu noch besseren Bedingungen als bisher. Die amerikanische Finanz und die hiesigen Bankiers haben das größte Interesse für Kapitalsanlagen in Deutschland, was bei unserer großen Vorsicht in internationalen Finanzangelegenheiten nicht der Fall wäre, wenn nicht die Ueberzeugung herrschte, daß die deutsche Wirtschaft gesund und vertrauenswürdig ist. Eine Revision des Dawes-Planes ist notwendig.
Der Herzog von Reichstadt im Burgtheater.
Feuilleton. Der Herzog von Reichstadt im Burgtheater. Nichts ist verdrießlicher, als wenn der Geist der Politik sich einer künstlerischen Frage bemächtigt und sie, ungeistig wie dieser Geist nun einmal ist, aus der Sphäre reiner Betrachtung in jenen trüben Meinungsqualm herabzuziehen versucht. Ein solches Schicksal bedroht nun schon seit Monaten: Rostands Herzog von Reichstadt, und es ist vielleicht etwas mehr als ein Zufall, daß es gerade ihm droht. Konnte es der arme junge Herzog, der zwei Schlachtfelder: Aspern und Wagram in seiner viel zu schmalen Brust trug, doch auch schon bei Lebzeiten keiner Partei recht machen, weder den Habsburgern. noch ihren Feinden. noch ihren Feinden. Von entgegengesetzten, ja einander tödlich hassenden Ueberzeugungen schmerzlichst hin - und hergerissen, endete er sein kaum erblühtes Leben in völliger Zerrissenheit. Jetzt scheint dieses tragische Los auch dem Theaterstück zu blühen, aus dem seine grazile Gestalt, von den wortreichen Zauberkünsten des französischen Dichters beschworen, noch einmal gespensterhaft zum Licht emporsteigt. Gespenst heißt im Französischen, weit weniger gespenstisch " revenant ", und ein solcher Wiederkehrender, zur Unzeit Zurückgekehrter, ist auch der unglückliche Prinz, der nirgends Ruhe finden kann, nicht