"Infernal Machine"

As everyone had expected them to do, the Wiggin Committee, that sober assembly of international bankers meeting in Basle to consider Germany's credit needs, voted to extend all present foreign credits in Germany for six months but stipulated that Germany must release immediately 25% of the foreign cash balances in Reichsmarks held by government order in German banks, must release an additional 15% monthly. Then, just as the sober gentlemen were all packing up to go home, the full report burst on the world. Concluded the Wiggin Committee:

". . . The second condition relates to the external obligations of Germany. So long as these obligations, both private and public, are such as to involve either a continuous increase in snowball fashion of the foreign debt of Germany or, alternatively, a disproportion between her exports and imports on such a scale as to threaten economic prosperity of other countries, prospective investors are unlikely to regard the situation as stable.

"The Committee believes it to be essential that before the period of prolongation of credits recommended by the London Conference comes to an end, the Powers represented at the London Conference should give the world confidence in international political relations and the assurance that international payments to be made by Germany will not be such as to imperil the maintenance of her financial stability. . . The world has been endeavoring to pursue contradictory policies in developing a situation where annual payments of large sums have to be made by debtor to creditor countries, while at the same time putting obstacles in the way of the movement of goods with which to make such payments. Financial remedies are powerless to restore economic prosperity unless there is a radical change in this policy."

Mystery of M. Moreau. Wall Street bankers immediately realized that the Wiggin Committee had set their names to an Albert Henry Wiggin report. "Al" Wiggin, head of the world's biggest bank, has said before that Reparations and Allied Debts must be reduced before prosperity can return. He has said that tariffs, and the U. S. tariff in particular, are too high (TIME, Jan. 19 et seq.). Here were delegates from ten countries saying the same thing again under his chairmanship. The mystery was how Al Wiggin persuaded France's delegate, hollow-eyed, white-haired Emile Moreau, to sign the report without public protest. It is definitely known that while the report was being prepared Banker Moreau banged the table in his best French manner and swore that he would return to Paris immediately if the question of Reparations was brought up. Yet the spidery signature of Banker Moreau appeared in its due place on the bottom of the report when it was signed. Back in Paris, Banker Moreau was called immediately to confer with government heads, had nothing to say to the Press beyond remarking plaintively :

"Why keep harping on the sad plight of our neighbor country?"

Reaction. Other Frenchmen had a word to say. Said the Paris-Midi:

"The experts' report is a kind of infernal machine which can be directed against Reparations, containing a certain quantity of explosives which, skillfully handled, can make the Young Plan's financial edifice fly to pieces."

Finance Minister Flandin was blunter: "France will never relinquish her rights to Reparations payments from Germany."

There were French Cabinet meetings last week. Never once was it publicly stated that the Wiggin report had been referred to.

Even the Hoover Administration washed their hands of it. Washington's first comment was a sharp reminder that Mr. Wiggin and his battery of Chase vice presidents had gone to Basle as private citizens, that they had no official standing whatever. Obviously the Wiggin Committee which started with Herbert Hoover's blessing had finished by laying considerable responsibility at the door of the Republican Party. It condemned the tariff. It declared, against all Republican tradition, that Allied Debts and Reparations were inseparable. And it asked a none too obedient Congress to ratify debt revision when President Hoover in his original Moratorium announcements had committed himself to the statement that all the postponed debts must ultimately be paid.

If Washington demurred, Wall Street approved.

In Paris, Banker Wiggin took a suite in that diplomats' hostelry, the Hotel George V, and hurried to press his advantage with further interviews with French bankers and politicians.

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