Such an attitude was clearly faced and decided in Paris. On the strength of the decision made on 26th December by the Commission of Reparations, which reported the failure of Germany, as regards Italy also, to supply wood, France and Belgium decided to proceed to the exploitation of the Crown and Communal forests in the Rhine territory. Germany had, besides, made it known that coal supplies and cattle would be refused to France and Belgium, by way both of reparation and restitution. The Commission of Reparations in its decision of 16th January verified this intentional failure on the part of Germany from the 12th January, and notified it to the Government. As a result of this, France and Belgium decided to take possession of the west customs frontier of Germany in the occupied zone. The Italian Government took over control of the customs and also of the forests, this being included among the measures which the Italian Memorandum had reserved as a security in the case of the concession of the Moratorium; but it asked the French Government what was going to be the extent to which the action was to be carried. The French Government replied that the occupation of the Ruhr was not of a military character, but was for the protection of French technical bodies, which were very numerous in the occupied area. The Italian Delegate, who was already on the High Commission of the Rhine, which directs the exploitation and also the control of the mines, has received orders to take part in those deliberations which have an economic and financial character, and to abstain from attending those which are political. As I said before, the attitudes of the Great Powers have not altered to any great extent. England seems officially uninterested in what happens on the Ruhr, but this has not prevented the English Representative on the Rhine High Commission from declaring in the name of his Government that he will be present at the deliberations, abstaining from recording his vote when he thinks it best; but he adds, also, that his Government will not oppose the carrying out of the provisions in the zone occupied by the English troops which still remain on the Rhine. As you see, it is not England’s intention to accentuate the difference between her policy and that which is, at present, adopted by France.