DEBTOR'S GROWING EXPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 122, 19 November 1929, Page 8

DEBTOR'S GROWING EXPORTS

To-day's cablegrams contain bi" figures of the cost of social services in Britain (including unemployment insurance thirty-eight millions, and working-class housing twenty-three millions) along with the statement that for the first time in history the exports of Germany exceed the exports of Britain. These export figures, however, cover only the first six months of 1929. The cablegram states that "Ge?man trade is rising by leaps and bounds, and Britain's is stagnant." This is an extraordinary comment on war and its aftereffects, and one that will be more and more studied and analysed as time goes on. Meanwhile, Britain stands by sterling, and looks down the vista of the future to some turning point at which countries who depreciated their own currencies after the war will have to "cash in." Wlfat the Germans are thinking about it few people know, but Germany's long fight against reparation payments shows that she is not prepared to subscribe to the theory that it is a positive advantage to be a debtor. Under the reparations arrangement, Germany must export to somebody, and the nations that won the war cannot expect to see German debts paid and German trade remain static. Only the United States feels competent to sell and receive interest and yet not buy. Meanwhile, the problem of the Allies in Europe is how to make the world safe for creditors without ruining it for manufactur-