The Auckland star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news morning news and The Echo. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1926. DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 13, 16 January 1926, Page 8

The Auckland star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news morning news and The Echo.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1926. DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.

For the causa that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ioe eon do.

Another European Debt Commission has now landed on American shores, prepared to essay the difficult' and invidious task of extracting reasonable terms from the one great creditor nation. This time it is the Yugoslavs who have approached Washington to explain the hardships they have endured, and to plead for some degree of generous consideration. And in spite of the precise and emphatic terms on which the Americans have assured the world that this matter of debt collecting is to them "strictly business," we will continue to hope, for the reputation and prestige of the American people, that the Yugoslavs will not plead wholly in vain, tor it ia a simple matter of history that no nation among the Allies fought more valiantly or made more grievous sacrifices in the common cause; than the Serbs and their Slav kinsfolk. Not even Belgium and its people endured such bitter extremities of devastation and bloodshed, outrage, and ruin than Serbia; And how that this little nation of heroes, exhausted and impoverished by their super-human struggles, petition tho richest people oh earth for generous treatment—what will Americans answer be? As regards the general question of the financial relations between the United States and the European countries there is no need to labour the argument. The facts Are plain and palpable, but the conclusions that are drawn from them depend wholly on the point of view. So far the American outlook, according to its official exponents, has been purely commercial and legal. But it is well to remember that there is a strong body of publift Opinion in the United States which represents a different standpoint, and puts forward a different interpretation.- A remarkable illustration of this "iiiihtlsinesslike" attitude is supplied by an article which appeared ia_t September in the Baltimore "Manufacturers' Record." This newspaper, well kriown for its enthusiastic patriotism, begins its discussion of the Allied debt question by reminding its readers that when, in response to Germany's insolent challenge, the American Government declared war, the safety and existence of the ,Great Republic depended on the victory of the Allies. If Germany had succeeded in conquering France and Britain nothing could have saved America. President Wilson, in appealing to the people to support his decision, and Mr. McAdoo, in putting his financial policy before them, declared emphatically that the millions which the American people were being asked to raise were to be expended in securing their own safety by helping to break the strength of the Central Powers. And simply because the Americans, paralysed by the long vacillation and indecision of their leaders, had made no preparation for war, and were not in a position to afford active help to the Allies at once, President Wilson suggested that the best way to help the Allies, in the interests of the United States, was to lend them money; These were the circumstances under which the financial obligations of the European States to the Americans were contracted; arid the "Manufacturers' Record" goes on to explain how and why the financial position of the American people enabled them thus to become creditors of the whole world. During the first two years of war, America, says our Baltimore contemporary, ".held itself aloof from any part in the contest, except to grow fat on selling enonhoua quantities of supplies to the Allies." It was the surplus of this prodigious commercial and industrial expansion that was now used to finance the Allies. But, says our American critic, most of the money thus lent did not go to Europe. Practically every dollar of it was spent in America in exchange for provisions ' and munitions of War; "and 'in the main the prices paid were exorbitant, and in iaahy cases unconscionably and unscrupulously high," To make his point of view unmistakably clear, the writer adds: "After we had declared war, and before our soldiers could enter Europe, every man who died on the battlefields of France and Italy and Belgium died in defence of the United States as well as his own country, and every dollar expended by the Allies to that period was for our protection as well as for theirs." 1_ the light of these indisputable facts, the j Baltimore "Record" urges that the debts of the Allied States to the American Government should either be very substantially reduced of friped oUt altogether.