TOO GENEROUS OFFER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 104, 30 October 1923, Page 5

TOO GENEROUS OFFER

BRITAIN'S SACRIFICES

SIR R. HORNE ON WAR DEBTS

REPLY TO M. POINCARE.

(r&OH OO« OWK CORRHPOWMMT.)

LONDON, 13th September. In a speech last Saturday Sir Bobert Home. M.P. dealt with the vexed" question of reparations, and made clear a few of the points which French people, and especially M. Poincare, are apt to forget. The French Premier, said Sir Robert, argued that, white we wcra demanding sacrifices from'our Allies, we, on our part, where making no sacrifices, but claiming all that we should! in any event be entitled to demand ;under the London Schedule of Payments. If the French Prime Minister intended to create this' impression, it must hava been under a complete misapprehension of the facts of the case. In the British Memorandum, the Government offered to settle all British claims—those against Germany for reparations,' and those against our Allies for the money lent to them durine the war—for the Present value of the amount necessary K> pay our debt to America, namely £n0,000,000. U. Bokanowski/a FreS official had calculated the present valua ot .Britain s share of reparations from Germany under the scheme of payments oonnm t°? m Hay ' 1921 >at £715 >- 000,000. That cum was for reparations alone. It left untouched all Britain's legitimate rights against her Allies for the money which she advanced to them, on loan during the war The sum nf £710,000,000 wlich Britain had noT of! fered to accept not only discharged our. claim for reparations but also released our Alhes in the wax- of all their obligations^ to us It involved the surrenL by the British people of claims amounting, to £1,893,000,000, or, if lWa w eI * jen, out, of. account, of £1,200,000,000. n a 3Um> France owed us £600 000 - I ' % ont half- Therefore he woul'di have thought that the Prime Minister of France would be the last person to say that our proposals contained no sacri-" bees on the part of Britain. If they involved no sacrifices, let us revert to tha original arrangements. Let France pay, to us the debt which she owes to J, and let us take our agreed proportion of 22 per cent, of whatever Gil-many succeeded in paying for reparations. ' M. POINCARE'S DEMANDS. M. Bokanowski, in the calculations toi which he had referred, estimated tha> present value of the French share of reparations under the London Schedule of Payments at £1,700,000,000. M Poincare stated in his Note that France also!' had made advances to some of''her- Allies, to the amount of £250,000,006'0r £300,000,000. Let them take the lareeu figure, and add it to her claim for reparations. Together they made £2 000 - 000,000._ But France also borrowed'from toe United States of America and from us to the amount, in total, of £1 550 000,000. On balance, accordingly/ she ought to receive £650,000,000 in settlement of her accounts. But what was the demand of the French Prime Minister? It was that France stiould receive! £1,300,000,000 free of any obligation of payment of her debts to the United States and ourselves, or, in other words, that she should receive twice as much as the balance of claims in her favour could warrant. Britain, which was said to offer no sacrifices, was asking less than half the sum which she would be entitled to claim on an account. similarly struck. FRANCE'S 'PROSPERITY. France was in most respects a self* sustaining country. She had a soQ whose fertility and productity were whose fertility and productivity wera as we depended for four-fifths of our requirements upon external countries. : li* trapce, there was no unemployment. Indeed her difficulty was to find -sufficient labour to meet the demand. Thd distresses which afflicted us and involved! us in enormous public expenditure left her untouched. One of the results of the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine by France had been to make heH a more formidable competitor than sha has ever been in the British iron and steel trade. .The possession of theaa regions, rich m the most important .element of our basic industries, rendered trance to-day a far richer country, andl destroyed any reason which might hard been urged for Britain bearing any por, tion of the burden of her obligation^

BRITAIN WITH THE LARGEST DEBT. ■

Very authoritative confirmation haA recently been given to these considera, tions by an interview which M. Lastevn\i- uj French Minister of Finance, published in "Le Temps" of 19th Augl ust. He stated that the economic situ, ation of France.was now greatly im. proved Taxation was coming in beyond expectation. The earnings of theS ways showed a considerable increase. The deposits in the savings hanks ■ wer* greatly mcreased, and the adverse balance of trade which existed before thai *ar,, had in effect disappeared And! ?rt' ♦ * maaP k Of the borrowing^ the State from the Bank of France werd greatly reduced. To-day there ap^S in our Budget an item of £33,mfiW fund^rr' of, lnteF^ and sinking tund jn our American debt That mount had to be extracted from tha pockets of our people by taxation Yefi H»n f belligerent nations, and bur-' dened with an unexampled load of t« AS^ d6pr€S6ed aU oufnationai nations bore their fitting share n f^ .burdens of. the conflict /or Dart t at»any time by our AL s Wf, re,ac.cePt«*