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A REVISION OF THE TREATY

CHAP.

M. Leygues. French official opinion steadily recededfrom the concessions, never fully admitted to theFrench public, which Mr. Lloyd George had extractedat Boulogne. They now preferred to let themachinery of the Reparation Commission run itsappointed course. At last, however, on November6, 1920, after much diplomatic correspondence, itwas announced that once again the French andBritish Governments were in " complete accord."A conference of experts, nominated by the Repara-tion Commission, was to sit with German expertsand report; then a conference of ministers was tomeet the German Government and report; withthese two reports before it the Reparation Com-mission was to fix the amount of Germany 'sliability ; and finally, the heads of the Allied Govern-ments were to meet and " take decisions." " Thus,"The Times recorded, " after long wanderings in thewilderness we are back once more at the Treaty ofVersailles ." The re-perusal of old files of newspapers,which the industrious author has undertaken, cor-roborates, if nothing else does, the words of thePreacher and the dustiness of fate.

The first stage of this long procedure was in factundertaken, and certain permanent officials of theAllied Governments 1 met German representatives at

1 Lord D'Abernon and Sir John Bradbury for Great Britain, Seydoux andCheysson for France, d'Amelio and Giannini for Italy, Delacroix and Lepreux for Belgium, and, in accordance with custom, two Japanese. The German representatives included Bergmann, Havenstein, Cuno, Melchior, vonStauBS, Bonn, and Schroeder.