WAR DEBTS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20450, 21 January 1932, Page 7

WAR DEBTS.

AMERICAN OPINION. NO PART IN LAUSANNE CONFERENCE. POLICY OF SILENCE AT GENEVA. U'NITKU TIIESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTIUO TEI,EGKAI>H —COPYRIGHT.) (Received January 20th, 7.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 19. with the announcement of the substitution of Mr 11. L. Stimson (Secretary of State) for General C. G. Dawes (Ambassador to Great Britain) to lead the American delegation at Geneva on the eve of tho delegation's departure a semi-official outline of the American attitude toward reparations especially as related to disarmament was given to the Press.

America's reply to European overtures seeking advice on war debts will b'o that Europe must work out its own plan America's part at Geneva will !' e "snont, though influential," since it believes that tho questions thero are primarily European. The United States will take no part as the Lausanne Conference, but will carefully consider any concrete plan proposed for a further postponement of war debt payment or other concrete arrangements to meet the present emergency. It has been intimated that the Ame-nc-rm Ambassador to France (Mr Walter E. Edge) informed M. Laval (Pre£'ier) m rep ] y to <<f €e ] erS) » that tho united States would consider each nation's debt on its merits and that America did not believe that the debt problem was immediatelv pressing because no payment was due until December 15th. MENACE TO TAXPAYERS. NEED OF QUICK DECISION EMPHASISED. (Received January 20th, 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 19. A summary of the American newspapers' opinion of the present state of the reparations and war debts situation seems to be expressed by a leaderwriter in the Springfield (Massachusetts) "Daily News." "It is increasingly apparent that Germany intends to repudiate debts." says the newspaper. "This situation augurs ill for the American taxpayers, who have no alternative but to grin and bear it." "The New York World Telegranv' say's: Politics have been the curse of the issue from the beginning and are novy making a bad matter worse. The Lausanne Conference will probably patch up a temporary compromise agreement, then ran away from the problem until it catches up with it again in a worse form and America not represented. America should enter the conference with a definite programme, recognising that reparations and war debts will never be paid. Tho "New York Post'' says: Whatever is done at Lausanne must be done quickly. A combination' of a long conference and the political unrest attendant on the approaching elections in the United States, France, and Germany would be highly dangerous.

The "New York Times' '*" says: The high variability of German capacity to pay partly explains the French reluctance to adjourn the conference sine die. To-day they argue that Germany cannot pay, but there is no telling about two years from now. Leniency to Debtors. The Hartford "Times" (Connecticut) says: Congress is likely to be lenient with debtors who expect to pay, and likely to show no such disposition towards debtors who proclaim the hope eventually to avoid payment. A further moratorium granted on condition that it would not hinge upon payment of German reparations should cause the debtors to cease their talk of cancellation as a moral right. The Boston "Traveller" says: Tho news telling of tho importance of Herr Adolf Hitler seems overdrawn. "Wo suspect that Berlin parades him to worry creditors into concessions hardly due to the loser in a solf-started war that nearly wrecked civilisation.