HAs announced, the Reich Chancellor received the foreign experts this morning. Appeared: Messrs. Vissering, Kassel, Brand, Keynes, Dubois and Jenks. The Reich Chancellor welcomed the gentlemen with a speech in which, after the introductory words of welcome, he explained the following: “The fact that all the gentlemen to whom we addressed the invitation have accepted and willingly made their services available confirms that the decision the Reich government to submit the question of stabilizing the German currency to the opinion of foreign experts was correct. The possibility of stabilizing the mark has of course also been examined in detail by us and all the more intensively the further the devaluation of the mark has progressed and the more disastrous the consequences of this devaluation have become for the German economy, but also for the economies of the federal states are with whom Germany trades and must trade.
One view of this problem is that attempting to stabilize the mark is premature and will not ensure lasting success until two conditions are met, or at least are likely to be met, namely, balancing the budget and balancing the balance of payments , as long as the import of goods exceeds the export of goods as much as in recent times – the deficit in exports unfortunately has to be assumed to be much larger than the previously published figures indicate – as long as there are other passive factors in addition to this passivity of the trade balance for various reasons come that will increase the deficit in our balance of payments. Unfortunately, the fulfillment of these two conditions depends to a very large extent on the stabilization of the mark itself. In this way, causes and consequences merge into one another.
And this situation leads the other opinion to the demand to cut through this vicious circle and first of all fix the mark on some basis, if not definitively at least provisionally, in order to prevent the further slide of the currency in any case. And this quickly and with determination, because with the current decline in the mark, there is no longer a long wait if the German economy is not to collapse completely.
In this unclear situation, the Reich government felt the need to hear how this problem was viewed from abroad, and it was out of this need that it addressed the invitations to the experts. The Genoa Conference, and in particular the Committee of Experts, have already dealt with this question in detail and have issued an important opinion, from which only one sentence should be recalled. The Committee of Experts said in its report at the time: “When a country’s external debt burden exceeds its ability to pay, and when that country cannot obtain assistance through external borrowing, efforts to meet those obligations must necessarily result in the markets in other countries and that there will continue to be a continued devaluation of the debtor country’s currency, which will completely prevent the debtor country from making any attempt to stabilize the currency.”
At that time, this opinion was issued in general and without reference to a specific individual country. It is now a matter, and this is the request addressed to the experts, to examine this question particularly with regard to the German currency and to give us an opinion on it:
1. Is it possible for the market to stabilize under the current circumstances?
2. If not: What conditions must be created to enable stabilization?
3. What measures need to be taken to stabilize once the conditions are in place?
These are the questions that the Reich government would like to have answered. Experts have complete freedom to initiate and carry out their work and consultations at their own discretion. You can keep it to yourself. But if you want to be informed about a number of subjects, about the German budget, about the German balance of trade and payments and other things, in order to gain a secure basis for your judgment, you can ask questions to the German ministries or to German experts from science and practice. The answer of the experts to this question will certainly be eagerly awaited at home and abroad and will be given deep attention.”
