Cuno's Speech

Before a crowded Reichstag Chancellor Cuno, describing himself as " an honest merchant," made a speech, which, while it lacked the fire and brimstone of oratorical genius, was after all more a categorical denunciation of French "violence" in the Ruhr than an attempt to define German policy. He claimed that the French were acting against the Versailles Treaty devised by the other Powers; that the Rhineland High Commission had sold itself without restriction to the French. He said that he doubted whether France came into the Ruhr for reparations and that her action made it impossible for Germany to estimate her capacity to pay. Toward the end of his speech Cuno, changing from the passive to the resolute, said: " We will not cease our policy of passive resistance. . . . We will agree to no settlement severing illegally occupied territory from Germany. . . . The world is silent --the victims are still too few. I do not appeal even now to foreign countries, I merely note that after seven weeks of fighting for our rights and for the peace of the world we still stand alone."