15 OCTOBER 1921, Page 2

M. Loucheur, the French Minister for the Liberated Regions devastated

by the Germans, and Herr Rathenau, the German Minister of Reconstruction, concluded an agreement at Wies- baden last week for the making of reparation in kind. Germany is to provide within the next four years goods to the value of £350,000,000 for the benefit of the departments which her armies deliberately laid waste. Such reparation is obviously just. Payment in kind, moreover, will not disturb the exchanges, as the payments in gold have done. But the agree- ment is most significant in that it shows a new willingness on the part of the French Government to come to terms with the Germans. If the agreement is fulfilled, it will hasten the coming of a real peace.