Thursday, July 17, 1930

Berlin:  As promised yesterday, the socialists introduce a measure in the Reichstag declaring illegal Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s and President Paul von Hindenburg’s use of the emergency decree provision of the German constitution to implement Bruening’s tax measures, and calling for a vote of no-confidence in Bruening’s government.  Bruening postpones the vote on the measure until tomorrow.

In the meantime, nationalist political leader Alfred Hugenberg pays Bruening a visit.  Hugenberg’s nationalists now find themselves in the position of being able to save Bruening’s cabinet by voting against the socialists’ measure.  But in exchange, Hugenberg makes six demands of Bruening, one of which is his old ax-grinder: he wants Bruening to abolish the war debt payments of the Young Plan.  He also demands that the nationalists be included in a coalition government against the socialists, and that the socialists be turned out of office in Prussia and replaced with nationalist parties.  “Only a definite anti-Marxist policy can save Germany from being involved in fresh difficulties and from the downward path,” Hugenberg says.

 

Bruening refuses.  He apparently intends to go forward with the vote on the socialists’ measure, and if it passes, execute the signed order he’s already been given by President Hindenburg, dissolving parliament.

 

Harbin, Manchuria:  An estimated 40,000 ethnic Koreans who were living in Russian Siberia have fled into Manchuria in recent weeks, bringing with them stories of suffering and persecution wrought by soviet collectivization.  They report that more than 2,900 Korean farmers were exiled by the soviets to forced labor lumber camps in even more remote regions of Siberia.  Tens of thousands more Koreans are reportedly still in Russia trying to get out, but the soviet government has reinforced its border guard, preventing them from leaving.

 

Paris:  Responses keep coming in to France’s proposal for a “United States of Europe.”  Great Britain’s response is that the proposal is not acceptable to Britain in its present form, but that the essential idea is welcome, and questioning whether it could be achieved better through the League of Nations.