DEBTS SITUATION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 102, 24 January 1933, Page 9

DEBTS SITUATION

Speculation in America

MR. ROOSEVELT’S MOVE Proposition for Congress CHANGE IN AGREEMENT By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. (Received Jan. 23, 7 p.m.) Washington, Jan. 22. There are no further developments in connection with the war debts situation following the Hoover-Roosevelt conference. Semiofficial speculation is now centred on what proposition Mr. F. D. Roosevelt, President-elect, is likely to advance and what the Congressional reaction to it will be.

The principle of a lump sum payment or some sort of short term agreement wiping out the existing 62-year agreement is generally favoured iu financial and diplomatic circles. There is a great desire that Britain should return to the gold standard, or otherwise stabilise her currency, while Senator Borah has indicated that he would insist on disarmament before agreeing to support a settlement. RECEPTION IN BRITAIN Generally Welcomed NO OFFICIAL COMMENT YET Official Wireless. Rugby, Jan. 21. The announcement from Washington of the willingness of the incoming Administration, when it takes over early in March, to confer with British representatives on war debts and to discuss 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 95 million dollars in gold. It then required £29J million to discharge this gold obligation of £19,633,976. 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-govern-mental obligations.” Beyond a general expression of satisfaction at the prospect of the progress promised by the Washington announcement, no official comment is as yet available in London.

Realities of the Situation.

"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 has 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 a settlement on the Lausanne model or frank cessation of payments. “The second reality is that since the next payment is due on June 15 and since these war debt obligations, so long as they are maintained, constitute in themselves an inseparable barrier to economic recovery, it Is a matter of urgency that they should be out of the way before the World Conference meets, and that it would be a grave mistake to make a solution of this problem dependent on a prior or simultaneous solution of any of the ma ay complicated questions with which the conference will have to deal.”

. The “News-Chronicle” says that the announcement “represents a very great advance on any former position taken up by America." The “Daily Telegraph” says that it is all to the good that the war debts question has been salvaged from the backwater into which it had drifted out of the stream of events, but it thinks for the moment that what is most needed is an authoritative interpretation of the exact bearings of the American: announcement.