• * • * The Council of Ambassadors have been
considering the Note in which Germany will be informed of the points on Which she is said to have defaulted. In Paris it is sug- gested that Germany will need some time to satisfy all the requirements of the Allies, and therefore Cologne can hardly be evacuated this year. If this is true it will be a great disappointinent to all the friends of peace. At the London Conference France promised to remove her troops from the Ruhr by August of this year, and we assume that the promise will be kept. The Dawes Scheme obviously Presupposes that this will be done. There would then be no substantial reason whatever to continue the occupation of Cologne. In January it was otherwige ; if the British troops had been withdrawn the French in the Ruhr would have been left, as it were, in mid-air, as their com- munications passed through Cologne. In order to secure her communications France would no doubt have occupied Cologne herself if Great Britain had left it. The Germans certainly did not desire that, and in the circumstances were content that we should stay on.
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