News of the Week
THE Lausanne Conference is still in a critical stage as these words are written, but all the 'evidence suggests that the alarms of Wednesday, when according to Lausanne messages only the obsequies remained to be conducted, were a good deal beyond what the situation called for. Herr von Papen's week-end visit to Berlin undoubtedly brought him in contact with elements less conciliatory than himself, and his attitude on his return to the conference centre reflected the impression made on him. Add to that a French newspaper statement which the German Chancellor found it necessary to correct by a communiqué which lent colour to the idea that Germany was demanding liberation from all the inequalities imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, followed in turn by unwarranted and unofficial comments specify- ing the inequalities in detail, and the history of Wednes- day's alarums becomes clear enough. Such crises have chequered the course of most of the major post-War conferences, as they are bound to when the negotiations :are conducted in secret, with the keenest journalists in the world waiting to snatch at every fragment of unconfirmed information and build elaborate and often unjustified inferences on it.
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