It is notorious that Belgium has followed rather ruefully in
the wake of France as regards the Ruhr policy. A sign—a hopeful one—that Belgium would like to regain Allied unity is the new plan for reparations which she has put forward. It had been arranged that French and Belgian Ministers should meet in Paris for a conference on reparations, but this conference has been indefinitely postponed.; and, meanwhile, the Belgian Government is endeavouring to convince M. Poincare that the reply to the new German proposal should be a collective one. The Belgian plan is a contribution to this end. It proposes that certain German industrial monopolies should be earmarked and. placed under Allied control. The Belgians believe that £100,000,000 might be raised each year from the exploitation of the German railways and the receipts from tobacco, sugar, alcohol, oil and so forth. * *
Previous page
