WAR DEBT PROBLEM

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 306, 28 December 1931, Page 7

WAR DEBT PROBLEM

FRANCE AND BRITAIN. Conference to be Held at The Hague. AMERICA WILL NOT COME 15. (United P.A.-Electric Telegraph—CopyrigM) (Received 9.30 sjsl) PARIS. December 27. The French and British Governments h2ve agreed to the holding or a Debts and Separations Conference, as suggested by the Basle Advisory Committee, at The Hague on January IS. It wij announced last evening that an official notice of this suggestion cad been dispatched to the other interested Powers. The unanimous opinion ot the Frencfi Press is that the success of the conference depends upon the United States. The Washington correspondent ot the York Herald-Tribune," however, savs the American Government has decided to accept no part in the lortheoming European economic conference on reparations. I his refusal of the United states to turn the conference into a joint discussion of debts and reparations definitely lays to rest rumours arising from the Basle report. The correspondent says, he learns on the highest authority that the Department, if the occasion arises, will inn ounce that the question of reparations is purely a European problem and that only after Europe has settled it will the United States undertake to consider the effect of diminished reparation payments upon the debt question.