Prager Tagblatt
- A Counter-Manifesto from Mellon.
- Gold Currency in Belgium.
- The Austrian Army Parliament.
The Prager Tagblatt of 26 October 1926 carried three foreign reports in the passages read here. A fragment presented as a "counter-manifesto" by US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon argued that Europe could be compared with America only if each of the 48 states had its own tariff, budget, currency and language, and it rejected the idea that Washington would change its tariff policy for the sake of European reconstruction. From Brussels the paper reported that decrees in the official Moniteur had put Belgium on a gold currency, fixing the franc at 175 to the pound and making the new belga the unit quoted on the exchange. From Vienna it gave the final results of the Austrian army's elections for soldiers' representatives: the Social Democratic Militärverband kept a large majority, while the rival Wehrbund gained ground.
Translation
A Counter-Manifesto from Mellon.
…would be comparable if we were to regard each of our 48 states as a separate nation, each of which had its own customs tariff, its own expenditures, its own currency and its own language. What the economic experts are trying to achieve is a European situation resembling the American one. Nevertheless, part of the American public believes that we intend to change our tariff policy because it is hindering European reconstruction.
Gold Currency in Belgium.
Brussels, 25 October. This evening the decrees officially proclaiming the stabilization of the franc appeared in the "Moniteur". From today Belgium has a gold currency. The franc has been stabilized at a rate of 175 to the English pound. In future, however, it will no longer be the franc that is quoted on the exchange, but a new monetary unit, the "belga".
The Austrian Army Parliament.
Vienna, 25 Oct. The Korrespondenz Wilhelm reports: The final results of the elections of soldiers' representatives (Vertrauensmänner) in the Federal Army are now available. According to them, the non-political Wehrbund received 54 mandates (34 in 1925), the Social Democratic Militärverband of the free trade unions 202 (214 in 1925), and the German Soldiers' Community one mandate.
Context
What the bankers' manifesto was and how Washington first answered it
The Prager Tagblatt framed this fragment as a "counter-manifesto" from Andrew Mellon, who had served as US Treasury Secretary since March 1921 and whose influence in national politics reached its peak under President Coolidge. The document he was answering had appeared in Europe on 19 October 1926. In his remarks to correspondents that day, Coolidge described it as a manifesto signed by bankers and manufacturers abroad and by Mr. Morgan and other New York financiers, calling for a lower tariff to stimulate trade with Europe and among European states. Coolidge said he had not seen it and did not know whether a rough draft had been given to Mellon during his trip abroad that summer. This background explains the defensive tone of the surviving lines, which say that the economic experts' aim was a Europe resembling America and deny that the United States meant to change its tariff because it was hindering European reconstruction. The exact wording of Mellon's statement is available here only in the paper's German rendering.
Why the administration rejected the European analogy
Mellon's image of 48 states each with its own tariff, currency and language follows the line Coolidge had laid down on 19 October. Coolidge argued that customs duties among European states were a different matter from those between the United States and Europe, because living standards within Europe differed far less than those between America and Europe. He added that out of imports of close to $5 billion only about $1.5 billion paid any duty, and he doubted that much could be done to stimulate European trade without gravely jeopardizing American living standards, wages and production. The administration thus held up the American home market as an example of free trade inside a protected frontier, not as a reason to lower that frontier. As the paper reports it, Mellon's reply took the manifesto's own goal, a Europe that looked like America, and used it as a reason why American tariff policy did not need to change.
The terms of Belgium's stabilisation and the new belga
The decrees reported from Brussels followed a crisis year: in 1926 Belgium, like France, suffered depreciation and an abrupt collapse of confidence in its currency. Under the settlement, the new belga was worth exactly five paper francs and 0.209211 grams of gold, which in effect fixed the franc at about 36 to the dollar. The paper's rate of 175 francs to the pound matches the parity recorded for the belga, 35 belgas to £1. Time magazine reported that the operation rested on a $100 million international loan, whose proceeds the Bank of Belgium would use to hold the belga at its fixed parity, and it credited Finance Minister Emile Franqui and the bank's governor, M. Franck, with negotiating the loan. The belga served as a gold unit for international transactions while the franc continued in domestic use, which is why the paper says the exchange would now quote the belga rather than the franc. The reform also took Belgium out of the Latin Monetary Union, which ceased to exist at the end of 1926.
Soldiers' representatives in Austria's republican army
The "army parliament" of the headline refers to the soldiers' representatives (Vertrauensmänner) elected inside the Bundesheer, the professional army of the First Republic, which the Treaty of Saint-Germain limited to 30,000 men, including no more than 1,500 officers and 2,000 NCOs. The Bundesheer had grown out of the republican, Social Democratic-leaning Volkswehr, and the Social Democrats supplied almost all of these representatives. The representatives held a legally strong position in the army, and they also helped make sure that soldiers who left the service often went straight into the Republican Schutzbund, the Social Democrats' party militia. The Social Democratic Militärverband organised the majority of the rank and file. The paper's figures bear this out: in 1926 it held 202 of the 257 mandates reported.
The Wehrbund's challenge and the 1926 results
The report calls the Wehrbund "non-political", but accounts of the First Republic's army describe it as a bourgeois organisation set up to oppose the Militärverband. Military politics in these years was shaped by the bourgeois parties' effort to push back Social Democratic influence in the Bundesheer, and throughout the period the army ministry was held by the Christian Social deputy Carl Vaugoin, minister first in 1921 and then without a break from May 1922 to September 1933. The Wehrbund gained votes in the representative elections only slowly, but over the years the tide turned. The 1926 figures printed in Prague show an early stage of that shift: the Wehrbund rose from 34 to 54 mandates and the Militärverband fell from 214 to 202, while still holding a clear majority.
Original
Ein Gegenmanifest Mellons.
würden vergleichbar sein, wenn wir jeden unserer 48 Staaten als gesonderte Nation betrachten wollten, von denen jede einen eigenen Zolltarif, eigene Ausgaben, eigene Währung und eigene Sprache hätte. Was die Wirtschaftler zu erreichen suchen, ist eine europäische Situation, die der amerikanischen ähnelt. Nichtsdestoweniger glaubt ein Teil der amerikanischen Oeffentlichkeit, daß wir unsere Zollpolitik ändern wollen, weil sie den europäischen Wiederaufbau verhindert.
Goldwährung in Belgien.
Brüssel, 25. Oktober. Heute abend sind im " Moniteur " die Verordnungen erschienen, durch welche die Stabilisierung des Franc amtlich verkündet wird. Belgien hat von heute ab eine Goldwährung. Der Franc ist zu einem Kurs von 175 für das englische Pfund stabilisiert. In Zukunft wird aber nicht mehr der Franc, sondern eine neue Münzeinheit an der Börse notiert, der " Belga ".
Das österreichische Heeres-Parlament.
Wien, 25. Okt. Die Korrespondenz Wilhelm meldet: Es liegen nun die endgültigen Ergebnisse der Vertrauensmänner-Wahlen im Bundesheere vor. Darnach entfielen auf den unpolitischen Wehrbund 54 (im Jahre 1925 34) Mandate, den freigewerkschaftlichen sozialdemokratischen Militärverband 202 (im Jahre 1925 214) und die deutsche Soldatengemeinschaft ein Mandat.