DEBT TO AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 13

DEBT TO AMERICA

BAD BRITISH BARGAIN

ACCORDING TO BRADBURY

BALDWIN IN DEFENCE

Dulled Press Association—By Electrle Tel.graph- -Copyright Australian Press Association—United Serrlce. LONDON, 30th April. -Mr. Baldwin defended the American debt settlement at a dinner of the British Bankers' Association. Lord Bradbury, proposing the toast of His Majesty's Government, declared that he was disposed to think that Britain had made a bad bargain in debt funding. He also questioned whether the Government chose the most favourable moment for the restoration oi the gold standard.

The Prime Minister, in reply, maintained that in the circumstances at the time it was not an unfair business settlement. We were liable for 50,000,000 of interest until the debt was funded or paid. .Wo would never have made any progress in the restoration of currencies in Europe or restored the credit of the City of London to where it stood to-day if we had postponed indefinitely either paying or repudiating, in the hope .of making a better bargain. He claimed that the financial advantages from the restoration of the gold standard had been considerable. We got a stable, currency, stable exchanges, and comparative stability of prices and wages and a steady uninterrupted fall in the cost of living. In conclusion, he expressed the opinion that industrially the corner had been turned.

Under the settlement effected by Mr. Baldwin with Mr. Andrew Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, the Debt Funding Commission fixed the total repayable at 4,604,128,085 dollars, of which 4,128,085 dollars was to be repaid at once in cash and the balance funded at 3 per cent, for ten years and 3} per cent, thereafter, until redeemed by the operation of an '.accumulative sinking fund in 62 years. Interest is payable on 15th June and 15th December in each year at the rate of 31 per cent, for the first ten years and 4 per cent, thereafter to include the sinking fund.