On Tuesday, Sir John Simon scored a very charac- teristic
point, not indeed against Mr. Bonar Law, who probably agrees with him on the subject, but against those who think that France is in the• Ruhr " to collect her just debts." He elicited the definite statement that the " debt," the payment of which M. Poineare in the' French Chamber declared to be the absolute condition of French withdrawal, is the- one based on the figures- arranged- in the 1921 computation Sir John Simon : " Are the figures referred to the figures which the right hon. gentleman has declared to be impossible of collec- tion ?
Mr. Bonar Lam r " Yes, sir." (Opposition cheers.) We should have thought " national groans " would have been a more appropriate comment. Here, then, we have France pledged not to withdraw from Germany till a sum (£6,600,000,000) has been paid which Mr. Bonar Law knows to be " impossible of collection."
Previous page
