There are circumstances in which a wealthy nation, impelled by overwhelming motives of self–interest, might support this burden. But the annual income of 5000 paper marks per head is equivalent in exchange value (at an exchange of 20 paper marks to 1 gold mark) to $62.50, and after deduction of taxation to about $35, that is to say to less than 10 cents a day, which in August 1921 was the equivalent in purchasing power in Germany of something between 20 cents and 25 cents in the United States.[52] If Germany was given a respite, her income and with it her capacity would increase; but under her present burdens, which render saving impossible, a degradation of standards is more likely. Would the whips and scorpions of any Government recorded in history have been efficient to extract nearly half their income from a people so situated? For these reasons I conclude that whilst the Settlement of London granted a breathing space to the end of 1921, it can be no more permanent than its predecessors. EXCURSUS III THE WIESBADEN AGREEMENT In the summer of 1921 much interest was excited by reports of confidential interviews between M. Loucheur and Herr Rathenau, the Ministers of Reconstruction in France and Germany respectively. An agreement was provisionally reached in August 1921 and was finally signed at Wiesbaden on October 6, 1921[53]; but it does not come into force until it has received the approval of the Reparation Commission. This Commission, whilst approving the general principles underlying it, have referred it to the principal Allied Governments on the ground that it involves departures from the Treaty of Versailles beyond their own competence to authorize. The British delegate, Sir John Bradbury, has advised his Government that the Agreement should be approved subject to certain modifications which he sets forth; and his Report has been published.[54] The Wiesbaden Agreement is a complicated document. But the essence of it is easily explained. It falls into two distinct parts. First, it sets up a procedure by which private French firms can acquire from private German firms materials required for reconstruction in France, without France having to make payment in cash. Secondly, it provides that, whilst Germany is not to receive payment at once for any part of these goods, only a proportion of the sum due is credited to her immediately in the books of the Reparation Commission, the balance being advanced by her to France for the time being and only brought into the Reparation account at a later date.