Till there is a settlement on this point the Allied
Conference can do little more business, and interest is really transferred for the time being from the Conference to the bargaining that is going on between France and Germany about evacuation. The French negotiators evidently want, as we predicted last week, to use the date of evacuation as a lever for obtaining commercial promises from Germany. It is not quite clear yet what France expects to get or what she will insist upon. M. Herriot no doubt knows because, during the week, he has visited Paris, and he is said to have returned well pleased with his conversations with his Cabinet and with a definite policy in his pocket. To the ordinary observer it must seem that as the Dawes Report plainly implies the with- drawal of foreign troops from the Ruhr, the very accept- ance of the Report by France postulates immediate evacuation. Why, then, should there be any delay ? The French soldiers, so we were told, went to protect the French engineers. As the engineers are to withdraw, why should the soldiers stay ?
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