If Germany thinks that the retention of the duty, or
at all events of the power to levy the duty, means a kind of additional reparation payment she is mistaken. At least she is mistaken if she attributes to this country the intention of getting more than is literally provided for. What France really wants to do we cannot say, though it is conceivable that she thinks she has found in the duty a means of exacting a little more than could properly be obtained by the Dawes Scheme as such. Theoretically all reparation payments have to be pooled, so probably we shall yet have complicated negotiations with France. The one thing to keep clearly in mind at present is the essential importance of maintaining intact the Dawes Scheme. That scheme takes the whole reparation business out of the hands Of politicians and places it in the hands 'of financial experts. It is a principle with which we must on no account interfere.
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