A LATE SPRING FROST

The German nation has gained some peace of mind by refusing to believe what it did not wish to believe. Since January of this year Germany has thought that England was disgusted with her allies and that by playing possum for a time, she could tire out the remainder of the Entente. Unfortunately her peace of mind was doomed to be short-lived and has been nipped by a frosty note of censure from Lord Curzon. This cruel message from England is hardly loss curt than the refusal of France and Belgium. It even states that the British will "at a suitable moment, be ready to take part by the side of its allies, with whom they share a practical interest in this question, which they have no intention to abandon." Surely this is the most unkindest cut of all, and the mental peace of Germany has changed to panic.

The Curzon note takes the German government severely to task for nor talking business in its new reparations offer, an offer "far from corresponding to what his Majesty's government might reasonably have expected." This blow, coming together with another fantastic report from the Reichsbank alchemists which has raised the total of paper currency to nearly seven trillions of marks, has sent the mark down to 48,500 per dollar. In the general panic German are making startling confessions. They admit that they have received what they might have expected, they are even beginning to see that they must pay.

It is rumored that the high German officials are casting about for a figure which might appeal to the British government. They have not far to look not impossible changes to make in their thirty-billion mark offer. not long ago Lord Curzon was reported to have named forty billion gold marks as a starting point for conversations. And already advance notices of a new French statement of a most promising nature are filtering out. It is said that Premier Poincare's new bill will omit pension charges, will not require the Class C bonds unless her allies press their debt charges too hard, and therefore will reduce the total reparation charge to fifty billion gold marks. This is no more than enough to repair the damage which Germany herself caused in the war. No German can deny the moral obligation of Germany to pay this irreducible minimum, and if she would give up searching for possible means of quibbling and pledge herself to this amount, she would regain the confidence not only of all the allies but of the whole world.