In Germany the Paris proposals were taken seriously and provoked a considerable outcry. But Dr. Simons accepted the invitation to London and his experts got to work at a counter–proposal. “I was in agreement,” he said at Stuttgart on February 13, “with the representatives of Britain and France at the Brussels Conference. The Paris Conference shattered that. A catastrophe has occurred. German public opinion will never forget these figures. Now it is impossible to return to the Seydoux plan put forward at Brussels (_i.e._, a provisional settlement for five years), for the German people would always see enormous demands rising before them like a specter.... We shall rather accept unjust dictation than sign undertakings we are not firmly persuaded the German people can keep.” On March 1, 1921, Dr. Simons presented his counter–proposal to the Allies assembled in London. Like the original counter–proposal of Brockdorff–Rantzau at Versailles, it was not clear–cut or entirely intelligible; and it was rumored that the German experts were divided in opinion amongst themselves. Instead of stating in plain language what Germany thought she could perform, Dr. Simons started from the figures of the Paris Decisions and then proceeded by transparent and futile juggling to reduce them to a quite different figure. The process was as follows. Take the gross total of the fixed annuities of the Paris scheme (_i.e._, apart from the export proportion), namely $56,500,000,000, and calculate its present value at _8 per cent interest_, namely $12,500,000,000; deduct from this $5,000,000,000 as the alleged (but certainly not the actual) value of Germany’s deliveries up to date, which leaves $7,500,000,000. This was the utmost Germany could pay. If the Allies could raise an international loan of $2,000,000,000, Germany would pay the interest and sinking fund on this, and in addition $250,000,000 a year for five years, towards the discharge of the capital sum remaining over and above the $2,000,000,000, namely, $5,500,000,000, which capital sum, however, would not carry interest pending repayment. At the end of five years the rate of repayment would be reconsidered. The whole proposal was contingent on the retention of Upper Silesia and the removal of all impediments to German trade. The actual substance of this proposal was not unreasonable and probably as good as the Allies will ultimately secure. But the figures were far below even those of the Brussels experts, and the mode of putting it forward naturally provoked prejudice. It was summarily rejected.