The importance of yesterday's decision by the Reparations Commission is already apparent from the fact that the English deputy on the Commission, Mr Bradbury, left for London last night to report personally to his government.
The "manquement volontaire" within the meaning of Paragraph 17 of Annex II in Part 8 of the Versailles Treaty was pronounced by the Reparations Commission because Germany was in arrears with the delivery of the wood requested by France on March 31 with the consent of the Reparations Commission.
At that time, France had ordered 55,000 cubic meters of sawn timber for delivery by September 30 and 200,000 cubic meters of telegraph poles for delivery by November 30.
By December 15, 35,000 cubic meters of sawn timber and 65,000 cubic meters of telegraph poles had been delivered.
Defaulted by France, the German government agreed to deliver the rest by March 31 in negotiations that took place in Paris in early December between the Reparations Commission and German experts.
France did not respond to this, but referred the matter to the Reparations Commission and submitted a request that Germany's willful non-compliance be formally declared.
That happened yesterday.
The agreements reached after the moratorium with the Reparations Commission of Germany on the deliveries in kind expressly contain a clause according to which Germany, if it is in arrears with the deliveries requested by it as a result of obstruction or breaches of the agreements made, the undelivered quantities payable in cash on December 31st.
Yesterday, the Reparations Commission made a decision to this effect and the German government will have to compensate in cash for the 155,000 cubic meters of wood missing from the French order.
But that is by no means the only and certainly not the worst consequence of yesterday's decision by the Reparations Commission.
On the one hand, according to the French view, the establishment of a willful non-compliance, as happened yesterday, automatically gives the Entente the right to new penal and coercive measures against Germany.
In addition, however - and this was the main purpose of the French maneuver - yesterday's decision offers Mr. Poincaré the handle he has been looking for for a long time to be able to put his coercive measures against Germany, planned for January 17, into operation with a semblance of justice.
According to paragraph 17 of the above-mentioned annex to the peace treaty, the reparations commission must report any willful non-compliance by Germany to the governments represented on the commission (“gouvernements respectifs”), while at the same time announcing measures it deems appropriate with regard to German misconduct.
According to paragraph 18, these measures "can consist of economic and financial blocking and retaliatory measures in general, such measures as the governments mentioned consider necessary under the circumstances." From this provision, which is not entirely clear in the French text, the French government first deduces that the sanctions do not have to consist exclusively of economic and financial measures,