WAR DEBTS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11832, 13 January 1933, Page 5

WAR DEBTS

WORLD’S RECOVERY HAMPE.R- ---;; ; / ■ / . ed. ,/ ■

MUST BE BROUGHT TO END. !

NATIONS AWAIT AMERICA’S ATTITUDE.‘ ' : . ’

(British Official "Wireless.) ’■ RUGBY; Jan. n

Captain Eden, Under-Secretary fur Foreign Affairs, speaking on -the international outlook, said that the slow! progress made at the Disarmament Conference was not due to the faults or failings of the technical experts ortho ambitious or suspicions of the' armament linns, but to the unsatisfactory state of the political relations in Europe. It was . to' the securing of some improvement in those, relations and to the realisation of appeasement in Europe that tho conference must devote its energies tlris year, and it must approach the task in no narrow, selfish spirit. Germany now had returned to tlie conference, and to that extent at least the conference therefore started under happier auspices in the new year. In the chequered course of foreign politics in 1932 he said the Lausanne Conference stood out as a marked sue cess. Lausanne closed an unprofitable chapter iu tbe history of post-war reparations in Europe.

Manifestly, however, tlie burden of vast international payments could not be finally liquidated until the greatest creditor nation, the United States, stated her attitude towards them. Britain was both a debtor and creditor nation, and, therefore, it was naturally clear to her how'vicious iff its influence on world commerce was the attempt to make a vast international transfer of payments which had no commercial counterpart. Britain could hardly bo surprised if the greatest creditor nation was less quick to see tlie picture in the. samo perspective, lie continued, but that perspective was none the less true. These international payments dislocated trade, lowered commodity prices, and impoverished primary producers the world over. Until they ceased they would . inevitably hamper world recovery. Therefore, it was in the interest of every one—creditor and debtor alike— to bring them to all end.