Snowden Tattles

Tale-telling out of school is fun for the listeners. One night last week millions of Britons, including His Majesty George V, tuned in on the radio stations and had fun. They listened for 45 minutes to such tattling as has probably never before been indulged in by a British statesman of first rank. They heard hot off the scathing, contemptuous tongue of Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden the inside story of The Hague Reparations Conference. Assumedly the King-Emperor was de- lighted, for he soon "commanded" Mr. & Mrs. Snowden to come to him at Sandringham, received them on the lawn, kept them overnight.

The crippled Chancellor had spoken into the microphone from his easy chair at the Chancellor's official residence, No. 10 Downing Street. He knew that all Belgium read his words next day, yet he called the distinguished Prime Minister of that friendly state "poor Jaspar."* Careless of affront to Japan, he spoke of Dr. Mine- ichira Adachi, Chief of the Japanese Delegation, as "the quiet, plaintive Adachi." The whole speech bristled with that same humoring superiority--that air of considering other statesmen mere children-- which infuriated the Latin statesmen at The Hague to the point of tantrums and tears.

"The Right Honorable Philip Snowden calling the British Empire," began the radio announcer. Then came the querulous shrill voice of Snowden: "I want first to repeat my belief that payment of Reparations and War Debts is financially and economically impossible without inflicting injuries on the European debtors and creditors alike.* But I told them at The Hague: 'So long as there are payments we mean to get our share!' That was my bombshell. We had to adjourn for two days to enable the other delegations to recover from the shock. . . .

"They kept making totally inadequate offers." continued Chancellor Snowden and went on to tell how "the quiet, plaintive Adachi" came to him one day to confide secretly that he would not actually stand against Britain and was only sitting in with the French, Belgians and Italians "as an observer." This blazing indiscretion amounted to revealing that Japan--the little naval ally of Britain--had been ready all along to double-cross the Continental Powers, several of whose offers to Snowden were countersigned by Dr. Adachi.

As the climax to his tattling Chancellor Snowden described with tolerant superiority the last few hours of midnight bargaining before he won his extra share in the German Reparations "sponge cake" for Great Britain.

"It looked as though the breakdown was at hand," he said. "The French had ordered a special train to take them back to Paris, Briand made an impassioned plea to me to put the interests of Europe before a paltry financial consideration. I agreed. 'But you ask us/ I said, 'to accept half our just claim. We cannot do that.' The conference seemed at an end.

"It proved to be the darkest hour before the dawn. The room was insufferably hot. It all seemed over. Somebody moved for adjournment for ten minutes to give us a chance to get a breath of air. We broke up into little groups. The British remained in the conference room. The others went outside. Then the bargaining began.

"Jaspar of Belgium was the intermediary. He came to me in five minutes with an advance that met only 60% of our claims. I wrote our refusal and the heads of what we must have on a half sheet of note paper. We waited half an hour. Later he returned. He had advanced the offer 100,000 pounds a quarter of an hour back. Now he came with 50,000 more. He said that it was all he could do.

"I said, 'Be not weary of well doing.' He was in despair: 'We have all emptied our pockets,' he fretted. 'Go through your pockets again,' I said very kindly, 'and I am sure you can find enough to cover what remains between us.' "

"You told me you had a very kind heart,' said poor Jaspar, 'but we have never met a man like you.'

"I assured him it was out of the kind- ness of my heart that I wished him to continue his efforts, as I was sure he would succeed.

"Then someone had a brain wave. The hitherto undiscovered means of giving us the sum we needed was discovered. At midnight our demands were accepted and the conference saved."

Of course the British demands were not met in toto--as one would suppose from Chancellor Snowden's words--but only by about 82%. Moreover the concession won ($9,520,000 per annum) was relatively picayune, less than 1/4% of the balancing figure of the British budget. These facts were used last week in a slashing attack on the Laborite Chancellor by Conservative Sir Josiah Stamp. One of London's most potent tycoons. Sir Josiah served with Owen D. Young and J. P. Morgan in drafting the Young Plan which Mr. Snowden would not endorse at The Hague until it had been changed, to give Britain more "sponge cake." Last week Sir Josiah testily observed: "Mr. Snowden set out to get something off the Latins. He has got practically nothing!

"I doubt the final efficacy of the victory on economic grounds. I am not enough of a politician to say whether it is good politics."

All up and down Britain the Snowden victory seemed such good politics, last week, that dopesters freely declared the Laborites could win another 50 seats in Parliament if they could find a plausible pretext to hold a general election this month.

* Full name: Jaspar, Henri.

*Opined Lord Beaverbrook's Evening Standard next day: "So long as the U. S. persists in its policy of collecting War Debts ... the hope that the World War may become nothing more than an evil memory . . . must remain an unfulfilled and merely pious wish."