In our judgment it is essential that the conversations in
Paris about inter-Allied debts, however unofficial they may be, should definitely lead on to formal negotia- tions and the clearing up of the whole matter. Too long this dark cloud has hung over us. It is charged with dangerous electricity, and if we do nothing to disperse it it will soon be discharging thunderbolts at us. The high-tension feeling in America is sufficient warning of what may come. Just before the Dawes era there were many people who already despaired of straightening out the reparations tangle. Yet the intervention of the impartial General Dawes worked something like a miracle. There is no reason why a similar definite and determined effort should not produce similar results in the case of the Inter-Allied debts. If America refused —as she probably would—to be officially concerned with a conference for this purpose she might at all events send her "observers." To bring about such a settle- ment among the Allies themselves, even without their "Associate," should in any case be one of the prime objects of our policy.°
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