Dawn

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POLITICAL history is not a sequence of incoherent and haphazard events but a chain of causes and effects. A single individual may decide from one day to the next to alter the whole course and character of his existence, to close one chapter and begin another entirely different in tone and construction. Nations cannot. They are subject to the laws of evolution, for even a revolution is generally only evolution--an explosive sequence of events crowded into a short space of time, but leaving more of the ancien régime untouched than usually is at first apparent.

When the Dawes Report was published it was almost universally acclaimed as the opening of a new era. It was to solve all problems, financial and economic, and to bring back peace and prosperity to the world. Certainly the welcome accorded to it showed clearly how deep was the world-wide longing for a settlement.

Valuable as was the Report, its paramount importance was due to the fact that for the first time since the armistice an official conference dealing with reparations was able to put the whole problem on a business basis, and to eliminate all political elements and all illusions as to Germany's capacity to pay unlimited sums. The path indicated by the experts is certainly stony and fraught with danger, but it seems the only way out of a situation which has become more and more intolerable since the days of Versailles. Europe cannot recover as long as large districts like Germany and Russia remain outside the pale of normal international intercourse.

"Finally convinced, as we are, that it is hopeless to build any constructive scheme unless this finds its own guarantee in the fact that it is to the interest of all parties to carry it out in good faith, we put forward our plan, relying upon this interest." This extract from the Dawes Report lays stress upon the two elements essential to success: common-sense and moral responsibility.

Much has been said and written about the Report, often without a very thorough knowledge of its contents and of the underlying situation. It may, therefore, be useful briefly to recapitulate the problems which it is designed to solve...