DEBT SETTLEMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 9 July 1925, Page 5

DEBT SETTLEMENT

MUST COME FIRST,

AMERICA’S REPLY TO FRANCE

CONDITIONS FOR LOAN.

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT

(Received Julv 9, 10.5 a.m.) LONDON, July S.

The Washington correspondent of the Times says that “Debt settlement must precede any loan” will be America’s reply to a French proposal to float a large reconstruction loan, ir, the United States. No surprise is felt that France should desire such a loan, as it has long been foreseen that the only way of emerging from the difficulties under which the French Government is struggling would be recourse to foreign and, notably, American aid, but it is emphasised that only such a settlement of the French debt as would clearly p. ore French goodwill, and such a balancing of the Budget as -would demonstrate the French people’s determination to shoulder the burden, could rehabilitate French credit sufficiently to permit an appeal to the American investor. In other words, where France might argue that only after a loan was granted could debt settlement be reached,. the American attitudo would be an insistence, that the loan should not be first, but. third in the series of adjustments indicated. Times.