WAR DEBTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 288, 5 December 1932, Page 5

WAR DEBTS.

AMERICAN OPINION.

MASSES AGAINST REVISION.

"CAN SEE ONI-Y ONE FACT."

Two of the New Zealandcrs who returned to-day by the Monterey, after visiting the United States, expressed the opinion that there is a great mass of public opinion there opposed to any reduction of the war debts owed by Europe.

The Rev. Father Holbrook, of Auckland, remarked that, despite all the hoarding of gold in America, the unemployed totalled over 12,000,000, and that would be a solid argument against cancellation, revision or moratorium of the war debte due by European nations. While there was a feeling in one section that the war debts were debts of honour, Dr. John A. Ryan, of the Catholic University, had given the opinion that the debts ought to bo cancelled to prevent European ill-will. He held that the debt-payment arrangements were unreal, because the debts could not be paid, because America really did not want them paid, because the economic sacrilice involved in cancellation was negligible and because of the great advantages to be derived from cancellation. Dr. Ryan had said, however, that he would make the cancellation subject to two conditions. The first wae the wiping out of German reparations indebtedness, and the second wae the agreement of all nations upon a po'.cy of disarmament, outlawry of war and some revision of the Treaty of Ver-

sailles. In an effort to solve the unemployment problem, said Father Holbrook, many of the larger American corporations were placing their plants on a fiveday week basis, ae part of the "share-the-work movement." That scheme appeared to meet with the approval of Labour. The only places visited by Father Holbrook that were not troubled with unemployment were small islands in the Pacific, although ia his travels he did not see any striking evidence of want or destitution.

"To the Last Penny." The great mass of the American populace was opposed to any revision of the war debt, said Mr. S. Masdubost, a Wellington business man, who returned from a holiday trip to Europe and America. He passed through America on his way back. Though he was not in the United States when the latest British Note was received, and consequently could not speak about its actual reception, he thought that American opinion had already crystallised into ■opposition to Britain's proposals.

When Mr. Masdubost was told cable news had stated that while official opinion in America was set against any move by the debtor nations towards a revision of war debts, some business opinion and some newspapers were sympathetic towards the views expressed in the Note, he said that as far as he had seen, the newspapers were uniformly demanding payment to the last penny. "Their view is that a debt is a debt and should be paid. It is like a man owing you £10. You want the money, and future relationships weigh nothing when compared with the immediate present.

"The man in the street in America is no student of economics. He does not see that payment may have disastrous repercussions on him. The recovery of the world means nothing to him, when he can see only one fact, that someone owes his country money and does not want to pay. Again it is like the man owing you £10."

United States of Europe? France, said Mr. Masdubost, had been hard hit, but she was better off than some other nearby countries. While it would be useless to deny that the whole of Germany was topsy-turvy, he thought ■that things would right themselves without the civil war that some had feared. When things were again normal there the country would draw close to England and France. "If this question of war debts is not revised we will see, I believe, those three nations, England, France and Germany, together forming the United States of Europe against the United States of America."