DEBT TO AMERICA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 185, 19 May 1938, Page 10

DEBT TO AMERICA.

BRITAIN’S NON-PAYMENT-OBSTACLE TO UNDERSTANDING. LONDON, April 12. John Bull and Uncle Sam are like a husband and wife who have fallen out over money. In cold official language, this means that the war debt owed by Britain to the United States is proving one of the greatest obstacles to an understanding. A high American authority told a “Sun” correspondent that it was a pity Britain did nob make at least a token payment off the £900,000,000 owed. The British Budget forecast showing an estimated surplus of £28,000,000 had provoked an unfavourable reaction in America. The public there was asking why America could not get some of this toward what was owing. Americans did not realise that this surplus was purely nominal. There was really a deficit of £37,000,000, since £65,000,000 had had to be borrowed for rearmament.

Isolationists in the United States were also again quoting, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1932, when Britain refused to co-operate with America in putting severe pressure on Tokio.

Much harm was caused among inter-nationally-minded Americans by the British Foreign Office communique of that time, when Sir John Simon was Foreign Minister. This document set out the view that Japan really had no territorial ambitions in Manchuria, and that the Japanese would go when order was restored.

This is an old story now, but Americans note a curious parallel in the British official assertions that the Italians and Germans will quit Spain. They feel, that if Britain can deliberately remain so blind to menaces she is not likely to take the serious steps necessary to secure unity with America. The British Avar debt is continually rankling in the minds of taxpayers in the United States.