In the following month the Premiers met again at Boulogne (June 21, 1920), this meeting being preceded by an informal week–end at Hythe (June 19, 1920). It was reported that on this occasion the Allies got so far as definitely to agree on the principle of minimum annuities extensible in accordance with Germany’s economic revival. Definite figures even were mentioned, namely, a period of thirty–five years and minimum annuities of three milliard gold marks. The Spa Conference was again put off into the next month. At last the Spa meeting was really due. Again the Premiers met (Brussels, July 2, 3, 1920) to consider the course they would adopt. They discussed many things, especially the proportions in which the still hypothetical Reparation receipts were to be divided amongst the claimants.[5] But no concrete scheme was adopted for Reparation itself. Meanwhile a memorandum handed in by the German experts made it plain that no plan politically possible in France was economically possible in Germany. “The Note of the German economic experts,” wrote _The Times_ on July 3, 1920, “is tantamount to a demand for a complete revision of the Peace Treaty. The Allies have therefore to consider whether they will call the Germans sharply to order under the menace of definite sanctions, or whether they will risk creating the impression of feebleness by dallying with German tergiversations.” This was a good idea; if the Allies could not agree amongst themselves as to the precise way of altering the Treaty, a “complete accord” between them could be re–established by “calling the Germans sharply to order” for venturing to suggest that the Treaty could be altered at all. At last, on July 5, 1920, the long–heralded Conference met. But, although it occupied twelve days, no time was found for reaching the item on the agenda which it had been primarily summoned to discuss—namely, Reparations. Before this dangerous topic could be reached urgent engagements recalled M. Millerand to Paris. One of the chief subjects actually dealt with, coal, is treated in Excursus I. at the conclusion of this chapter. But the chief significance of the meeting lay in the fact that then for the first time the responsible ministers and experts of Germany and the Allied States met face to face and used the methods of public conference and even private intimacy. The Spa Conference produced no plan; but it was the outward sign of some progress under the surface. III. _The Brussels Conference_ (_December_ 16–22, 1920)