Dawes Plan
The
Dawes Plan was presented in
1924 by the committee headed by
Charles G. Dawes to the
Reparations Commission of the Allied nations. It was accepted the same year by
Germany and the
Allies. The Dawes committee consisted of ten representatives, two each from
Belgium,
France,
Great Britain,
Italy, and the
United States; it was entrusted with finding a solution for the collection of the German reparations debt, set at almost 20 billion marks. Germany had been lagging in payment of this obligation, and the Dawes Plan provided that the
Ruhr area be evacuated by Allied occupation troops, that reparation payment should begin at 1 billion marks for the first year and should rise over a period of four years to 2.5 billion marks per year, that the German Reichsbank be reorganized under Allied supervision, and that the sources for the reparation money should include
transportation,
excise, and
custom taxes. The plan went into effect in
September 1924. Although German business picked up and reparations payments were made promptly, it became obvious that Germany could not long continue those huge annual payments. As a result, the
Young Plan was substituted in
1929.