L’Écho d’Alger
- Our Debt to America
- The Belgian Communal Elections
- A New Scandal
This front page of L'Écho d'Alger carried three foreign dispatches dated October 12. From London, citing the Morning Post's Washington correspondent, it reported that President Coolidge would reject any French reservation to the Mellon-Berenger war-debt agreement and would keep American bank credit blocked until France ratified, including the sale of German railway bonds and possible advances of up to $200 million. From Brussels it described calm Belgian communal elections in which the Catholic Party appeared to win, the Socialists lost ground in Hainaut and Liège, and the feared Communist advance failed; the correspondent credited the women's vote. From Berlin it relayed unconfirmed charges by the Welt am Abend that the former German Crown Prince had secretly removed art from Hohenzollern palaces and sold it to dealers.
Translation
Our Debt to America
President Coolidge reportedly opposed to any reservation on the Mellon-Berenger agreement
London, October 12. – According to the Washington correspondent of the Morning Post, the French embassy will this week submit to President Coolidge the French proposals concerning the ratification of the debt agreement and the issue of German railway bonds on the American market.
There is every reason to believe, this correspondent writes, that the American government will definitively refuse to accept any oral reservation, just as it will refuse to intervene, even indirectly, in the issue of the bonds in question.
Mr. Coolidge is frankly opposed to any reservation that does not form part of the agreement negotiated by Messrs. Mellon and Berenger. The President fears that by acting otherwise he would create an unfortunate and unconstitutional precedent, which would cause serious embarrassment in the future.
Mr. Coolidge considers, moreover, that putting the German railway bonds on the market is merely an indirect means of launching a loan in America for the benefit of France, and he seems to have no intention of modifying the attitude adopted by the American administration since the Baldwin agreement, namely: that the American government intends to exert the necessary influence to prevent bankers from granting advances to States that have not settled their debts to the United States.
As soon as the agreement is ratified, the bonds can be issued, and the American government will no longer oppose the granting of advances to France by the bankers. According to this correspondent, these advances would be made up to a limit of 200 million dollars, either by private banks or even by the Federal Reserve Board, which, strictly speaking, is an independent organization.
The Belgian Communal Elections
THE CATHOLIC PARTY APPEARS SET TO WIN
Brussels, October 12. – The Belgian communal elections took place in the most complete calm. As not all the results from the provinces are yet known, it is difficult to form a definitive opinion. But it already appears that the Socialists have suffered a certain setback in the populous centers of Hainaut and the Liège region. They are losing seats, and sometimes their majority, in communes that seemed to be citadels of collectivism. The Liberals are making some gains in Brussels and Antwerp. But the victor of the day appears to be the Catholic Party, which rallied all the conservative forces. The women's vote is certainly not unconnected with this success. The Socialists have lost, it seems, the support of the Radicals who had come over to them at the previous elections. The Communist advance that had been feared did not materialize, and while in some communes the Communists weakened the Socialist position, they win only very few seats in Brussels, in the Liège region and at Charleroi. In the Borinage, they have not a single member elected.
A New Scandal
In Germany
Berlin, October 12. – Decidedly, the Hohenzollerns are beginning to be an embarrassment and to get themselves much talked about. After the militarist and anti-republican speeches of Prince Oskar, third son of the ex-Kaiser, at Nuremberg; after the rumors, since denied, of the impending return of William II, who would take up residence in the castle of Bad Homburg, at the foot of the Taunus; after the sensational affair of the clandestine enlistment in the Reichswehr of the eldest son of the ex-Crown Prince, an affair that cost General von Seeckt his post and put Marshal Hindenburg in a most unpleasant position, now it is the ex-Crown Prince himself who is in the hot seat.
He is accused of nothing less than being a thief: of having laid hands, without any right to do so, in various castles and palaces in Berlin and the provinces that had belonged to the Hohenzollerns, on numerous works of art that were allegedly then resold to antique dealers. These reportedly include a painting by Watteau, "The Dance," and several precious Gobelins tapestries: a Boucher, a Chardin. Several antique pieces of furniture of great value, ancient vases, carpets and priceless trinkets were allegedly moved out in secret on the ex-Crown Prince's orders, without the State, which is their real owner, having been informed. A sketch for a painting, "The Altar," by Rubens; three paintings by Pesne depicting Frederick the Great; Sèvres vases, marble basins, three pink vases that had belonged to Madame de Pompadour, as well as several pieces of chased silver plate from the eighteenth century, have reportedly disappeared.
The Welt am Abend, which provides this information – information that, it must be said, lacks confirmation – claims that the total value of the art objects that the ex-Crown Prince allegedly thus […]
Context
Why Poincaré would not ratify the debt accord without reservations
The French proposals mentioned in the London dispatch answered a plan for ratification with reservations that was taking shape in Paris. On October 7, 1926, six days before this issue, the American chargé d'affaires in Paris, Whitehouse, cabled Washington that Poincaré, though convinced the debt question had to be settled, was not yet ready to force the Mellon-Bérenger agreement through parliament as it stood, without reservations. Whitehouse reported strong opposition to ratification in parliament. He added that the opposition reached into the cabinet itself, chiefly in the person of Pensions Minister Louis Marin. The same cable said Poincaré was toying with the idea of German railway bonds instead of stabilizing the franc, and was preparing ratification with reservations in some form during November. Read against this, the paper's report gives Washington's answer in advance: according to the Morning Post's correspondent, Coolidge would accept no reservation outside the negotiated text. The deadlock lasted for years. The French Chamber of Deputies ratified the 1926 agreement only on 21 July 1929, by 300 votes to 292.
How Washington used bank credit to press France
The policy the correspondent described, in which the American government would use its influence to keep bankers from lending to states that had not settled their debts, matches what historians describe as a quiet American embargo: the United States began preventing private or public loans to France as long as debt repayment remained unsettled, which put pressure on the franc. The German railway bonds fit into the wider web of postwar finance. Under the Dawes Plan of 1924, Germany could borrow in the United States at reasonable rates and use the money to pay reparations to Britain and France. This circular flow helps explain why Coolidge, as the paper reported his view, regarded selling German bonds in America as an indirect loan to France. American bankers were also eager to lend. Whitehouse's cable noted that various American bankers had offered large sums once the debt agreement was ratified. The $200 million ceiling and the possible role of the Federal Reserve Board come from the correspondent's report and are not confirmed by the sources used here.
Why Belgian women voted only in communal elections
The Brussels correspondent linked the Catholic success to the women's vote, and Belgian women could vote in these elections only because of a postwar compromise. When universal single suffrage was introduced for men, Liberals and Socialists hesitated to extend it to women, fearing it would only strengthen the dominant position of the Catholics. The compromise, enacted by the law of 15 April 1920, made voting compulsory for women in municipal elections and left parliamentary suffrage for later. Belgian women first took part in parliamentary elections on 26 June 1949. The communal elections of October 1926 were therefore one of the few occasions when the political effect of women's votes could be observed, and the correspondent's reading matched the outcome the anticlerical parties had feared. The sources used here give no 1926 figures separating women's and men's votes. The paper's attribution therefore remains an interpretation drawn from incomplete returns.
Who owned the Hohenzollern palaces and their art
The Berlin dispatch rests on the premise that the State was the real owner of the palace contents, and that ownership was precisely what Germany was fighting over in 1926. After the 1918 revolution, the states and the former ruling houses negotiated and litigated over what counted as dynastic private property. Prussia negotiated with the Hohenzollerns for years. A Prussian Finance Ministry draft of 1925 would have returned about three-quarters of the disputed real estate to the house. On 20 June 1926, a nationwide referendum on expropriating the former ruling houses without compensation won a large majority of votes cast, but a turnout of 39 percent was too low for it to pass. Individual compensation agreements then replaced expropriation and divided the estates between the states and the former dynasties. The Welt am Abend's charges thus appeared while it was still contested where the Hohenzollern property ended and state property began. The paper itself said the allegations lacked confirmation, and the sources used here do not establish whether they were true.
Original
Notre dette envers l'Amérique
Notre dette envers l'A Le président Coolidge serait opposé à toute réserve sur l'accord MellonBerenger Londres, 12 octobre. - D'après le correspondant de La Morning Post à Washington, l'ambassade de France soumettra cette semaine au président Coolidge, les propositions françaises relatives à la ratification de l'accord sur les dettes et à l'émission des bons ferroviaires allemands sur le marché américain. Il y a tout lieu de croire, écrit ce correspondant, que le gouvernement américain refusera définitivement d'accepter toute réserve orale de même qu'il se refusera à intervenir même indirectement dans l'émission des bons en question. M. Coolidge est franchement opposé à toute réserve qui ne fait pas partie de l'accord négocié par MM. Mellon et Berenger. Le président craint, en faisant autrement, de créer un précédent fâcheux et anticonstitutionnel, qui causerait à l'avenir de sérieux embarras. M. Coolidge estime, d'autre part, que la mise sur le marché des bons ferroviaires allemands, n'est qu'un moyen indirect de lancer en Amérique un emprunt en faveur de la France et il semble ne pas avoir l'intention de modifier l'attitude adoptée par l'administration américaine depuis l'accord Baldwin, à savoir: que le gouvernement américain entend exercer l'influence nécessaire pour empêcher les banquiers de consentir des avances aux Etats qui n'ont pas réglé leurs dettes vis-àvis des Etats-Unis. Dès que l'accord sera ratifié, les bons pourront être émis et le gouvernement américain ne s'opposera plus à l'octroi d'avances par les banquiers à la France. Selon ce correspondant, ces avances seraient faites jusqu'à concurrence de 200 millions de dollars, soit par des banques privées, soit même, par le Fédéral Reserve Board qui, à strictement parler, est une organisation indépendante.
Les Elections Communales Belges
Les Élections Communales Belges LE PARTI CATHOLIQUE SEMBLE DEVOIR L'EMPORTER Bruxelles, 12 octobre. - Les élections communales belges se sont déroulées dans le calme le plus complet. Tous les résultats de province n'étant pas encore connus, il est difficile de se faire une opinion définitive. Mais il apparaît, dès maintenant, que les socialistes enregistrent un certain recul dans les centres populeux du Hainaut et du pays de Liège. Ils perdent des sièges et parfois la majorité dans des communes qui semblaient des citadelles du collectivisme. Les libéraux réalisent quelques gains à Bruxelles et à Anvers. Mais le vainqueur de la journée paraît être le parti catholique qui a rallié toutes les forces conservatrices. Le vote des femmes n'est certainement pas étranger à ce succès. Les socialistes ont perdu l'appui, semble-t-il, des radicaux qui étaient venus à eux aux élections précédentes. L'avance communiste, que l'on craignait, ne s'est pas produite et si, dans certaines communes, les communistes ont affaibli la position socialiste, ils ne gagnent que bien peu de sièges à Bruxelles, dans le pays de Liège et à Charleroi. Dans le Borinage, ils n'ont pas un seul élu.
Un nouveau scandale
En Allemagne Un nouveau scandale Berlin, 12 octobre. - Décidément, les Hohenzollern commencent à être embarrassants et à faire beaucoup parler d'eux. Après les discours militaristes et antirépublicains du prince Oscar, troisième fils de l'ex-Kaiser, à Nuremberg; après les bruits, d'ailleurs démentis, du prochain retour de Guillaume II, qui prendrait le château de Hombourg-lesBains, au pied du Taunus; après la sensationnelle affaire d'enrôlement clandestin dans la Reichswehr du fils aîné de l'ex-kronprinz, affaire qui a coûté son poste au général Von Seeckt et qui a mis le maréchal Hindenburg dans une situation bien désagréable, voici maintenant l'ex-kronprinz luimême sur la sellette. On l'accuse de rien moins que d'être un voleur, d'avoir fait main basse, sans en avoir le droit, dans différents châteaux ou palais berlinois et de province ayant appartenu aux Hohenzollern, sur de nombreux objets d'art qui auraient été ensuite revendus à des marchands d'antiquités. Il s'agirait notamment d'un tableau de Watteau, «La Danse», de plusieurs Gobelins précieux: un Boucher, un Chardin. Plusieurs meubles anciens de grande valeur, des vases antiques, des tapis, des bibelots inappréciables auraient été secrètement déménagés par les soins de l'ex-kronprinz, sans que l'Etat, qui en est le véritable propriétaire, en eut été informé. Une esquisse d'un tableau, «L'Autel», de Rubens; trois tableaux de Pesne, représentant Frédéric le Grand; des vases de Sèvres, des vasques de marbre, trois vases roses qui ont été la propriété de Mme de Pompadour, ainsi que plusieurs récipients d'argent ciselé du XVIIIe siècle, auraient disparu. La Welt am Abend, qui donne ces renseignements, lesquels manquent, il faut le dire, de confirmation, prétend que la valeur totale des objets d'art dont l'ex-kronprinz se serait ainsi illé -