A WISE MOVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18, 23 January 1933, Page 7

A WISE MOVE.

AMERICA'S DECISION. British Satisfaction at Debt Parley Invitation. POINTS FROM THE PRESS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, January 22. The "Washington announcement of the willingness of the incoming Administration in America, when it takes over early in March, to confer with British representatives on war debts and discuss the world economic problems in which the_ two countries are mutually interested, is generally welcomed in Britain. The British Government has made no move in the matter since it paid to America, when the debt instalment came due on December 15, the sum of 90,000,000 dollars in gold. It then required £29,500,000 to discharge this gold obligation of £19,033,970. The American move is in effect a sequel to the request contained in the British Note of November 10 for a review of the regime of inter-Governmental obligations. Beyond a general expression of satisfaction at the prospect of progress promised by the Washington announcement, no official comment is as yet available in London. "The Times" welcomes the consultation and co-operation foreshadowed, and emphasises the need for a clear understanding of the realities of the situation, it says: "One of those realities is that, anxious as Britain has been and is to fulfil all her obligations, America made it impossible for her to go on making war debt payments by refusing to accept goods and services, by which alone payment is possible. Unless America is prepared to recast her whole economic policy so as to enable her debtors to pay what they owe, the only alternatives are settlement on the Lausanne model or a frank cessation of payments. "The second reality is that as the next payment is due on June 15, and since (these ivar debt obligations, so long as they are maintained, constitute in themselves an insuperable barrier to economic recovery, it is a matter of urgency that they should be out of the way before the World Economic Conference meets. It would be a grave mistake to make a solution of this problem dependent on the prior, or simultaneous solution of any of the many complicated questions with which the conference will have to deal." The "News-Chronicle" says it is expected that Treasury experts shortly will be dispatched to Washington to assist Sir Ronald Lindsay in conducting the preliminary conversations. The Cabinet delegation, which will go later for the "full-dress" conference, probably will be headed by the Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, or by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain. The "Daily Telegraph" says the invitation will be received with mixed feelings in Britain. It is all to the good that the war debts question should be salvaged from the backwater whither it has been allowed to drift, but Washington's reference to the world's economic situation suggests that America means to - tise the war debts to negotiate a tariff bargain with Britain and presumably later with, her other debtors separately. This would prejudice the application of any world formula by the World Economic Conference.