A REVISION OF THE THE AT Y

IV. The First Ultimatum of London, March 3, 1921

The following declaration was delivered to Dr. Simons byMr. Lloyd George, speaking on behalf of the British and AlliedGovernments, by word of mouth :

" The Allies have been conferring upon the whole positionand I am now authorised to make this declaration on theirbehalf :

" The Treaty of Versailles was signed less than two years ago.The German Government have already defaulted in respect ofsome of its most important provisions : the delivery for trialof the criminals, who have offended against the laws of war,disarmament, the payment in cash or in kind of 20,000,000,000of gold marks (£1,000,000,000). These are some of the pro-visions. The Allies have displayed no harsh insistence uponthe letter of their bond. They have extended time, they haveeven modified the character of their demands ; but each timethe German Government failed them.

" In spite of the Treaty and of the honourable undertakinggiven at Spa, the criminals have not yet been tried, let alonepunished, although the evidence has been in the hands of theGerman Government for months. Military organisations, someof them open, some clandestine, have been allowed to springup all over the country, equipped with arms that ought to havebeen surrendered. If the German Government had shown inrespect of reparations a sincere desire to help the Allies to repairthe terrible losses inflicted upon them by the act of aggressionof which the German Imperialist Government was guilty, weshould still have been ready as before to make all allowancesfor the legitimate difficulties of Germany . But the proposalsput forward have reluctantly convinced the Allies either thatthe German Government does not intend to carry out its Treaty obligations, or that it has not the strength to insist, in the faceof selfish and short-sighted opposition, upon the necessarysacrifices being made.

" If that is due to the fact that German opinion will not permit