The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1932. END OF THE WAR DEBTS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 70, 15 December 1932, Page 8

The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1932. END OF THE WAR DEBTS

France will refuse to pay her War-debt instalment to the United States due to-day. Belgium has defaulted. Poland is likely to do the X lialy stated" she will pay this ”aU the Great Britain is to pay but with the reservation that she tieats tnc as “a eapM payment of which account should be taken tn ThlrSnX’no denying the grave implicationsthe refusal of a Great Power such as France to pay. Undoubtedly she aid have paid and her action therefore amounts to repud,atton The decision will set up reactions in the cred.t structure of the who» world, public and private. As a great creditor country, France bound to feel the effect of what she herself has started. Apart from the overt apt, equal responsibility must rest upon America. The War debts constitute a special case, one that was fully and convincingly stated in the British Note published on December 3 America refused to deal. As a creditor she showed hersel unconscionable. She stood on her legal right to insist upon a moral wrong. If she can rely upon a contract, she cannot succeed in equity. For forcing this denouement of default, she is as much to blame as France. The latter is seeking the right end —cancellation but in the wrong wav. ... , , r. • , i So far as money is concerned Britain has been .left in the luicn She pays America but has suspended payments due from her Etiropcai< debtors and from the Dominions, New Zealand included. As Mr. Neville Chamberlain remarked the other day, the position is "absolutely insufferable.” Almost alone among the nations in this time of cruel depression, Britain is holding her head high and supplying leadership and inspiration. She may not have gained the whole world but neither has she lost her own soul. Yet she is the one to be put upon. The pound of flesh has gone and some drops of blood as well. Yet who shall say that John Bull will not come best out of this operation? If it were merely a question of money, Britain has paid away some millions of pounds' to turn into dollars and has forgone other millions of francs. But in the world’s eyes, which is the stronger tO -day—the dollar, the franc or the pound sterling? After this example of financial dealing, with whose bankers will the world feel safest in leaving money? By plain honesty in face of extreme necessity, and by generous dealing with debtors, London should surely prove to have re-established her financial supremacy over New York and Paris. As for the War debts, the practical effect is likely to be as described in Italy’s phrase—“no more.” America cannot in conscience continue to collect from Britain when France defaults. She cannot insist that Britain pay all the international War debts. The late Lord Balfour's policy of the clean slate must now be adopted, but ten years late. The world has had to endure three years of a crippling slump to bring this about. France and America have lost billions more than ever they could have collected in reparations or debts. After all it was England’s greatest poet who said, “Who steals my purse steals trash.” Britain has kept her “good name” and shall not lack her reward.