CHANCELLOR MARX SPEAKS AT THE REICHSTAG

What then are these unofficial promises made to the Germans by Herriot?

BERLIN, August 23. Chancellor Marx delivered a speech in the Reichstag to request the ratification of the London agreements.

"Herriot," he said, "is animated by the desire to establish good neighborly relations between Germany and France. Our efforts to have the stages of the liberation of the Ruhr fixed have been energetically rejected by Herriot, who declared that by fixing stages and dates, a more rapid evacuation of the Ruhr, such as he seriously desires, would be made difficult."

"It is quite natural that the Reich Government does not consider the present agreement on the liberation of the Ruhr as definitive and that it considers it its duty to obtain a complete and rapid evacuation of the occupied territories, as Herriot has led it to hope." »

"I am confident," said the Chancellor, "in a satisfactory and rapid solution if the problem of reparations can be resolved on the basis of the experts' report and the London Pact, and if appeasement is brought about in Europe."

In conclusion, the Chancellor wonders what would happen if the Reichstag were to reject the London Pact and the proposals for implementing legislation.

"Those who have followed world politics," he said, "cannot doubt that the London Conference was for us an opportunity that may not come again. An unexpected change has taken place in American policy, which, abandoning its reserve of recent years, has fallen under the banner of the experts' report in order to collaborate again rapidly in European reconstruction. This situation would change if one of the main contracting parties were to reject the experts' plan, which is the basis of the whole edifice. »

"On the other hand, London narrowly avoided the problem of inter-party debts causing the Conference to fail, and this danger was only avoided by means of very precarious compromises. If we break the threads tied in London, these dangers will resurface again, and America will cease to concern itself with the fate of Europe."