New York Times

New York Times, ‘Declares Germany Can Pay No More’. November 25, 1931, p.5.

DECLARES GERMANY CAN PAY NO MORE

Ex-Aide to Lloyd George Says No Regime Can Continue

Payments and Live,

PREDICTS A DICTATORSHIP

Nation’s Conviction It Has Been Betrayed is Dark Omen for 1932,

G. R. V. Jones Asserts Here.

Germany’s capacity to pay her war debts is exhausted and no government can exist which is willing to pay reparations, Gareth R. V. Jones, former foreign affairs secretary to David Lloyd George, declared yesterday at a luncheon of the Town Hall Club.

"In Germany today we are witnessing the revolt of a great nation," Mr. Jones declared. "It is, in the eyes of Germany, a revolt against three betrayals-against the betrayal by German politicians, against the betrayal by Versailles and against the betrayal by capitalism.

"The revolt against the Republic in Germany is based upon the corruption which it has fostered and which mainly expresses itself in placing party men in the best posts. There is little place for young people in the German Parliament of today unless you are in a Party of Revolution.’

Stresemann’s "policy of fulfillment," he charged, "has been proved a disastrous failure," as a result of which "men and’ women of all parties and all classes are crying out for a bold, courageous foreign policy, and the cry that is reiterated everywhere is ‘revision.’"

"Then you hear the menacing tone to General von Seeckt who declares:

‘The other states will never reduce their armaments to the German level.’ he continued. ‘Therefore, there must be an armament settlement which will restore Germany to the ranks of foreign States.’ This feeling in Germany that she has been betrayed by the Versailles powers is going to make 1932 one of the grimmest years in European history. "Unless the budgetary position of France and Poland becomes really disastrous, the Disarmament Conference is doomed to failure. What will Germany do? There is no other alternative for a National Government but to leave the League of Nations. The fate of the League lies now anxiously in the balance. Upon the future of Germany depends continuity or the complete collapse of Geneva."

A dictatorship, he added, "seems inevitable," and whether it will lead to civil war or bolshevism are problems that must soon be faced in Germany.