SHORT-TERM CREDITS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 51, Issue 261, 18 August 1931, Page 5

SHORT-TERM CREDITS.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS.

LORD BEAVER BROOK'S VIEWS. \ United Press Association—Copyright) HALIFAX, August 17. "Startling figures totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, representing short-term credits extended to Germany by Great Britain and the TJnited States, form the crux of to-day's world financial crisis," declared Lord Beaverbrook, British newspaper peer, in an interview here. "The satisfactory disposal of these gigantic immediate obligations, which up to the present has baffled the efforts of international experts, is the only avenue which offers anv hope of solution." Lord Beaverbrook added that the impression in Canada that Russia had captured the British wheat market was a complete fallacy. Argentina had captured the market. She sent ten times as much wheat to Britain last year as in 1929. That was what caused the break and at the moment when the Argentine was making increased shipments Canadians were holding back their wheat for improved prices.

"American loans in Germany have assured the Germans they will not have to pay more than a portion of their reparations and the Allies their war debts/' wrote the Paris correspondent of the "New York Herald" on July 1. "A noted international banker informed me three days before the Hoover plan was announced that foreign currencies had loaned to German banks alone 2,000,000,000 dollars and anovher 2,000,000,000 dollars had been loaned to German industries. Of this 4,000,000,000 dollars very close to halt is said to be American capital; and it is certain other American loans run to a vast sum.' How, then, can the United States afford to risk losing between 2,000,000,000 and 3,000,000,000 dollars in Germany As long as that money is in Germany, how can the American Government keep aloof from Germany's troubles or;regard in detached fashion the menace of civil war or Bolshevism in the Reich? The answer already has been given that we cannot. We have sunk so much in Germany that our fates are tied to hers. Yet it is strikingly apparent that to the extent of 2,000,000,000 dollars.or more American capital has reinforced Germany's resistance to reparations payments and indirectly the Allies' uncertainty of paying their war debts."