WAR DEBT SETTLEMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 September 1925, Page 5

WAR DEBT SETTLEMENT.

FRENCH OFFER TO U.S.A. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRHIGT, PARIS, Sept. 24. According to Le Atatin, the French delegates to the Washington Debt Commission will offer to incorporate in the principle of the war debt amount ,:g to 2,933,000,000 dollars American war stocks purchased by the French Government for 407,000,000 dollars in 1919 and repayable in 1929, thus totalling 3,340,000',000 dollars. France accepts the 62 years fixed by the Congress for spreading over payment and does not ask for a moratorium, hut asks for the suspension of payments in case of necessity. _ France proposes to pay 25,000,000 dollars annually for the first five years, including 20,000,000 dollars interest. She is a'ready paying for American war stocks. Thereafter for five years she w.il| pay 30,(X)0,000 dollars annually, thereafter for six years 50,000,000 dollars annually, and from 1946 for the last 42 years on an ascending scale to 89,000,000 dollars annually. It is understood that M. Cai'.laux (Minister for Finance) is endeavouring to obtain a financial respite for the next ten years, and a revision of payments according to capacity to pay.

BR ITAIN’S DEBTORS. WANT LIBERAL TREATMENT. LONDON, Sept, 25. The diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Telegraph states that- since the -provisional (agreement between Mr, Winston Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer") and M. Caillnux (French Minister' for Finance) other debtor Powers have submitted claims to receive from Britain at least as liberal treatment a.s France. It can be taken L 'or granted that all the rest of the debtors will do the same, but if the 2$ cent .accepted in France’s case is to become the standard, Britain’s receipts from all debtors might he several millions below the annuity she is paying lie United States.

The same correspondent points out that it will be agreed between the Allies and Germany that the. pact conference opening at Lucerne on October .5 wrl not reach binding decisions, .the agreement readied requiring Germany’s Parliamentary approval before signn”re. The conference, therefore, is re-•'l-3(1 as only informative, the real decisions being reserved for a later lonarv conference of Prime Ministers nd Foieign Ministers.