The Narrowed Gulf There is, in fact, no need to
read into Herr von Papen's statement anything beyond the claim Germany has always put forward for equality of status in the matter of armaments, which never meant equality in numbers of men and munitions and would be met quite adequately by the plan of qualitative disarmament .which Signor Grandi and others have proposed. In any Case that is a Geneva matter, and it only figured inci- dentally in the German Chancellor's Lausanne declaration. That left aside, it is clear that only a very narrow gulf separates the French and German standpoints on the reparations question, and Mr. MacDonald's endeavours to bring this part of the Conference to a head by Monday or Tuesday may result in the necessary bridge being constructed. Unfortunately German public opinion re- quires Herr von Papen not only to avoid the payment of reparations but to declare with emphasis that he cannot and will not pay them. That, of course, makes unnecessary difficulties for M. Herriot and goes some way towards neutralizing the effect of the demand put forward on Tuesday by a section of his Radical Socialist supporters for a clean sweep of reparations altogether. But with Germany ready to make some sort of deferred payment, provided it is not called reparations, and France ready to be content with very little, provided Germany does not actually repudiate, the situation is far from hopeless. *
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