Vossische Zeitung
- The Secret of Romsey
- Who Is Going to Geneva?
- Abolition of Spanish Judicial Sovereignty
The Vossische Zeitung of 17 October 1926 relayed a Manchester Guardian report from London: talks at Colonel Ashley's house in Romsey, meant to lay the foundations of an "economic Locarno" between British and German industrialists, had stirred French and Belgian suspicion, and both governments told their London ambassadors to find out what had been agreed. In a signed column, Georg Bernhard argued that the big political problems of Germany's entry into the League of Nations were largely settled and turned to the question of who would fill the Secretariat posts set aside for Germans. A Madrid dispatch reported a decree-law letting the Spanish government set aside court judgments, even Supreme Court rulings, turning a former emergency power into the norm.
Translation
The Secret of Romsey
The Curiosity of Diplomacy
Vossische Zeitung news service
sch London, 16 October
The Manchester Guardian writes that the attempt to lay the foundations of an economic Locarno at Colonel Ashley's house has led to a complication somewhat reminiscent of the complications that clouded progress on the political Locarno last year. The French and Belgian governments, it says, have instructed their ambassadors in London to penetrate the secret of the negotiations and to report what agreements have been reached between the English and the German industrialists.
Who Is Going to Geneva?
By Georg Bernhard
The great political problems that entwined themselves around Germany's entry into the League of Nations have for the moment been solved, or their solution has come close to a point that offers gratifying prospects. Germany will now have to make itself at home within the League of Nations itself. Outwardly, this must take place by Germany naming the persons who are to move into the posts of the League Secretariat set aside for Germans. It is said that even before the German Foreign Minister's departure from Geneva, between him and the Secretary-General Sir Eric …
Abolition of Spanish Judicial Sovereignty
Vossische Zeitung news service
oe Madrid, 16 October
A decree-law, valid with immediate effect, has been published in the Spanish official gazette empowering the government to set aside court judgments, including those handed down by the Supreme Court. This power, which the government previously held only in cases of extreme emergency, has now been raised to the norm, and this on the basis of an earlier royal …
Context
Colonel Ashley: a serving minister and his Romsey estate
The "Colonel Ashley" whose house gave the London report its title was Wilfrid Ashley, a soldier and Conservative politician who served as Minister of Transport under Stanley Baldwin from 1924 to 1929, so in October 1926 he was a sitting member of the British government. His family seat was Broadlands, a country house near the town of Romsey in Hampshire, which had passed to him from his father Evelyn Ashley. The fact that private talks between British and German industrialists took place at a serving minister's home helps make sense of why the Manchester Guardian, as quoted by the Vossische Zeitung, compared them to the diplomacy of Locarno, and why Paris and Brussels reportedly set their ambassadors to work. The report names neither the industrialists nor any terms, and the account of French and Belgian inquiries rests on the Guardian as relayed from London. Ashley's later career shows a lasting interest in Anglo-German rapprochement: in 1935, by then Lord Mount Temple, he was instrumental in establishing the Anglo-German Fellowship.
Who filled Germany's posts in the League Secretariat
Bernhard's question was which Germans would take the Secretariat posts reserved for Germany. The Secretary-General he names, Britain's Sir Eric Drummond, headed the Secretariat from 1 August 1920 to 2 July 1933, so he was the official with whom the German side had to settle its candidates, and the column breaks off just as it begins to report on what passed between Drummond and the German Foreign Minister. The answer to Bernhard's question appears in the list of under-secretaries-general: the German Albert Dufour-Feronce held that rank from 1927 to 1932, the same years in which Italy's Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli and Japan's Yotaro Sugimura served as under-secretaries-general, and Ernst Trendelenburg, also German, followed him in 1932–1933. Germany thus received a senior Secretariat post on the same footing as Italy and Japan, but only from the following year; in October 1926, when Bernhard wrote, the names were still open.
Spain's courts under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship
The decree reported from Madrid belongs to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, whose years from 1926 to 1930 the legal historian Emilio Javier de Benito Fraile describes as a period of evident deterioration in judicial independence. In his account, the advances in the independence of the judiciary made in the first phase of Primo de Rivera's Directory declined progressively, and very fast from 1926 to 1930; his study analyses both the legislation of those years and what it calls the despotic attitude of the executive in applying it. The measure in this dispatch fits that pattern closely: a power to set aside court judgments, including those of the Supreme Court, which the government had held only in extreme emergencies, was made into a standing rule. The Vossische Zeitung's headline went further and called it the abolition of Spanish judicial sovereignty. The dispatch breaks off where it begins to cite an earlier royal measure as the legal basis, so the excerpt does not show how far the new power reached.
Original
Das Geheimnis von Romsey
Die Neugier der Diplomatie Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " sch London, 16. Oktober Der " Manchester Guardian " schreibt, daß der Versuch, im Hause des Obersten Ashley die Grundlagen zu einem wirtschaftlichen Locarno zu legen, eine Komplikation zur Folge gehabt habe, die ein wenig an die Komplikationen erinnere, die den Fortschritt im politischen Locarno im vorigen Jahre trübten. Die französische und die belgische Regierung hätten ihre Botschafter in London beauftragt, das Geheimnis der Verhandlungen zu durchdringen und zu berichten, welche Uebereinkommen zwischen den englischen und den deutschen Industriellen erreicht worden seien.
Wer kommt nach Genf?
Von Georg Bernhard Die großen politischen Probleme, die sich um den Eintritt Deutschlands in den Völkerbund rankten, sind augenblicklich gelöst, oder ihre Lösung ist bis zu einem Punkt nahegerückt, der erfreuliche Aussichten bietet. Deutschland wird sich jetzt im Völkerbund selbst häuslich einrichten müssen. Aeußerlich hat das in der Weise zu geschehen, daß es diejenigen Persönlichkeiten namhaft macht, die in die fürDeutsche bestimmten Posten des Völkerbundssekretariats einrücken sollen. Es heißt, daß bereits vor der Abreise des deutschen Außenministers aus Genf zwischen ihm und dem Generalsekretär Sir Eric
Aufhebung der spanischen Gerichtshoheit
Aufhebung der spanischen Gerichtshoheit Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " oe Madrid, 16. Oktober Im spanischen Staatsanzeiger ist ein sofort gültiges Gesetzdekret veröffentlicht worden, das die Regierung ermächtigt, gerichtliche Urteilssprücheaufzuheben, auch solche, die vom höchsten Gerichtshof gefällt wurden. Diese, der Regierung bisher nur in äußersten Notfällen zustehende Machtbefugnis wurde jetzt zur Norm erhoben, und zwar auf Grund eines früheren königlichen