"GENERAL AVERAGE"

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 75, 26 September 1922, Page 8

"GENERAL AVERAGE"

A WAR DEBTS SOLUTION

AUSTRALIAN BANKER'S PROPOSAL.

(JI lILItItAPH.—IPICIiL 10 Til POIT.)

AUCKLAND, This Day.

Going to Honolulu to represent the .Commonwealth Bank of Australia at the Commercial Conference of the Pan-Paci-fic Union is Mr. Mark Young, who was one of the through passengers on the Makura, which arrived yesterday morning from Sydney. The union is an American idea to promote better gelations among the peoples bordering on the Pacific. It will be remembered that there was recently held a Press Conference under the auspices of the Pan-Pacific Union. At the forthcoming commercial conference the subjects that are to be discussed include communication -and transport, with special reference to cable rates; the development and conservation of national resources; finance and investments ; and international relations in the Pan-Pacific area. Mr. Young is to read a paper before the conference on "The History of Banking in Australia." Referring- to Mr. Young's departure from Australia, "Bank Notes,' 1 a banking journal, spoke of a matter upon which he has written on several occasions —a matter which affects the whole Empire—the burden of the war debts. Mr. Young holds that victory over Prussianism was as valuable to America as to the other Allies, and therefore every one of the Allies should bear its proportion of the total costs of the war. His suggestion is that America should contribute towards the coat of the war since 1914, although she did not actually come into it until some years later. As all suffered the same danger, B o they should all bear the cost of the victory, says Mr. Young. As a basis of settlement he suggests that the Allies should strike a general average, on lines similar to those followed when a vessel is damaged.