GREAT DECISIONS AT BOULOGNE CONFERENCE.

GERMAN INDEMNITY.

TOTAL OVER £12,000,000,000.

FROM A FRENCH CORRESPONDENT. BOULOGNE, Tuesday Afternoon.

The Inter-allied Conference at Boulogne ended this afternoon. It was probably the most successful conference ever held by the Allies, and it is very satisfactory to think that they are in such close understanding immediately on the eve of the meeting with the Germans. The main results achieved may be stated as follows:

For the first time the Allied Powers are agreed as to the carrying out of definite sanctions should those sanctions become necessary in order to secure the enforcement of the Versailles Treaty. If Germany does not speed up the destruction of her war material, as required by the Note forwarded to her this morning by Marshal Foch, measures of military coercion will be taken against her. If Germany does not pay her debt according to the scheme which will be presented to her at Spa, she will lose the undisputed control of her Customs system. That is a new departure of which the great value cannot be over-emphasised.

Several failures by Germany to comply with the provisions of the Treaty were for the first time seriously considered; for instance, as regards the deliveries of coal provided for in the Peace Treaty and the destruction of war material, which Germany pretends to have accomplished before Jan. 10, when the Peace Treaty was put in force, that is at a time when the Allies had no power to control what she was doing in that respect, and to make sure that no fraud was used in order to deceive them.

Owing to the new spirit the existence of which this Conference has proved, the financial scheme agreed to between the French and British statesmen is assuming very special importance. So far no accurate account of its working has been published. I understand that Germany will be called upon to pay two series of annuities:

1. Forty-two fixed annuities of three milliard marks, gold value (£150,000,000).

2. Thirty-seven additional annuities, from 1926 onward, the Commission on Reparation receiving power to delay the payment of such additional annuities should the economic situation in Germany make such delay advisable.

The total sum of the German indemnity thus provided for will be found to reach between 250 and 260 milliards of marks (£12,500,000,000 to £13,000,000,000). Apparently, the difference from the figures mentioned at the time of the Hythe meeting is explained by the fact that no interest will be charged except when the additional annuities are postponed.

The only part of the financial scheme still left for discussion concerns the repartition between the Allies of the money received from Germany, the Italians having formulated the counter-claims reported yesterday. The whole matter has been referred to the Brussels Conference which assembles on July 2. A settlement will be very difficult indeed, as the opinion of each country involved differs from that of the others, and even an Anglo-french agreement is doubtful on the proportion arranged formerly.

The discussions on the German indemnity were relatively protracted and at times animated. The British delegates urged with persistence the fixing of a maximum instead of a minimum total, and the Belgian and Japanese delegates also inclining this way, the point was provisionally conceded by the French, hitherto its firmest opponents – but on conditions.