THE OTHER SIDE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 75, 26 September 1922, Page 7

THE OTHER SIDE

INTER-ALLIED DEBTS

THE AMERICAN CREDITOR

VIEW OF LORD BALFOUR'S NOTE.

Last week "The Post" published some British Press opinions upon Lord Balfour's Note, upon inter-Allied debts. The American view of the debts problem is thus set.out in "The Times" (London) by a special correspondent, who was recently in the United States:— If we had frcen looking for some way to irritate American public ophitdn Against Us and to make it more difficult tha« ever fof the Uhited States to take any part in the reconstruction 61 Europe, we could hardly have done it- more ingeniously than 'by the isfeue of the Balfoor Note at this moment. It is generally accepted by thinking people that the best hope for the future of the world lies in the friendship and cooperation of the English-speaking peoples. Events in the last two years have tended materially to increase that friendship ; and especially has $iere been marked improvement, in the temper of public qp'iriioji it the United States towards Great Britain. The Balfour Note cannot do otherwise than put a severe check upon this Hopeful tendency. "' Discarding the impossible suggestion that tins was the' Government's intention, one dn only assume that the Government: so failed to understand American sentiment, or the bases on which that sentiment rests, that it did not know what it was doing. It is always difficult foi- one people to see any question from another people's standpoint; but what is before all things necessary if there i s to be any spirit of cordial cooperation between us is that we should try to understand what the general American sentiment is, and why it is so. ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN SENTiMENT'.

There are, of course; wide divergences of opinion in' the United States, as there are in the opinions of all peoples on any large matter; bui the essentials of American sentiment on the points now at issue, so far as they diffier from ours, may be summarised as follow :—

1. A general cancellation of debts would mean a very different thing for the United States from what it would meaft for Great Britain. We occupy a iftiddle position. If we forgive the European debts and_ are in turn forgiven our debt to the United States, we are neither worse n&r better off than we were before. We receive, a good equivalent for 'pur sacrifice. If- the United States forgives, it gets no equivalent. There are no debts which it owes to other countries to be remitted. It would be all pure sacrifice. The fact is obvious; but it is doubtful if British opinion has generally grasped it.

2. The United States believes that it is already the only country on the Allied side which got nothing out of the war. It alone asked for arid took 110 territorial compensation for its losses, either absolutely ol- under mandate. Nor did it gain (as it considers that" Great Britain gamed) the safcisfactibrii of having its position of maritime supremacy seciirftitl by the obstruction of its most formidable rival. According to the American view, England received from the war an immense increase in power, prestige, and territory, while the United States expected and took nothing.. Why should it—so runs American thought— now bear the expense to which England was subjected: in securing these advantages?

3. The United States grew rich, certainly, in theory; but, so far as the individuals of the people are concerned, this acquisition of riches has benefited them liqtliing. It costs more to live in the United Slates than it did; and Americans are taxed as they never were before. It is beside the question to say that _ Englishmen are taxed still mote heavily. In any oase, the income tax, with all its corollaries, is a new thing iii the United States, and the Americans feel and resent the burden of it much more.than. we. What- money was made by a'section of the people was not made in the war, but as an accident of their neutrality. When they came into the war they began to sjpe'hd with both hands on a scale mor«j lavish than any other nation. If they did not succeed in getting rid Of all the money they had made as neutrals, ife was only because their coming in automatically helped to bring the war to an end. So far as their cooperation in. the war went', it has left them 1 only a legacy of disturbance, high prices, and burdens of taxation, with no viable advantages. 4. It was not, they .hold, their war anyhow. They gr'arif that, in. a, sense, it was a war td save civilisation and that' they are interested in civilisation. But they Were not compelled to come in. As for the talk about future danger to the United States from a victorious Getmany | ambitious of world domination, they wotild, they think, have been quite able to look after themselves when the time came. Their motives were, they believe, entirely altruistic.

SUBSCRIBED BY THE PEOPLE. (5) It is not as if the European loans were all Government loans. They were subscribed by the people, The great bulk of the subscribing tvaS done under the enthusiasm stirred up by a whirlwind Campaign, in which it was very hard at first toiget the people routed. Then, when once convinced, many, denied themselves normal luxuries to be able to subscribe to what they believed to be a good cause. Many more subscribed because they were assured that the investment \Vas eblind; small hoardings of a lifetime wotc put in and the subscribers depend on the interest for a livelihood. Are they to give up their holdings and their livelihood, or is the Government to take them over by hew internal loans which will have to be met by heavier taxation ?

(6) There is no reason why America should be burdsned with Europe's troubles merely because the European people ore unaWe t6 look after their own affairs : because, as Americans see it, bickerings, jealousies, envious diplomacies h&iided down f?ohi tlie days of corrupt monarchies make them incapable of going about the ordinary affairs 6f life decently and earning a proper livelihood fOr themselves. Why should America, shoulder all the trouble for which she is not to blame, and individual Americans be tSied to their niari'ow because Europeans Are profligate and worthless ? (7) It may be that England is better than the rest; but what especial causa have we, Americans ask, to be grateful to Great Britain, oi to pull her chestnuts out of the fire for her? And hefe come in all the old grievances against. England and all the prejudices against the Very name "British" sprung from the Bevolutionary War and fostered since by Ifish and other influences. All friends of the peace of the world have rejoiced that of late those prejudices have been so evidently weakening; but they have not yet weakened so far that Americans see any reason, why, out of mete love for us, they should make us a present of some 4.000,000,000 dollars. It is riot a little pathetic to consider that one of the main Reasons why American sentiment towards ua has improved has been admiration for what they regard as oiir sturdy financial independence since the war. " It is jtifit that feptitdtibn foT independence which, at one stroke, we have thrown away. FACTS TO BE RECOGNISED. Erom several of the foregoing propoaitions, oi course. English readers will

violently dissetLt. That is the whola point: one people finds great difficulty in seeing any question from another people's angle. We may regret, and oven be astonished, that in some of these particulars American opinion is what it is.. But we can only recognise the facts. It is idle to ignore them and assume that Americans see eye to eye' with us. It is equally idle to mount, the high horse and lecture them. Worst of all would it be to think thaf? out- dignity, or anything else, required that we should "stand up to" the United States. Our dignity requires that we should pay our debts. .That is going to earn us the respect not merely of Americans, but of the world as nothing else can. What we may choose to do afterwards about the debts of other nations to us is another matter from which _th<» payment of oiir debt to the United States ia .and must be kept entirely, distinct. The best hope how .is that? Americans may be made to understand! that in. this unfortunate document _ th& British Foreign Office does, not faithfully, represent the views of the British,,peg-, pie.