DEBT SETTLEMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 30 January 1926, Page 5

DEBT SETTLEMENT

FRENCH PAYMENTS. ITALY’S BETTER TREATMENT. O UESTION FOR MR CHURCHILL. EY CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. (Received Jan. 30, 10.5 a.m.) PARIS, Jan. 29. Le Temps asks why Mr Winston Churchill requested France to pay three times as much as Italy, when the respective debts were £620,000,000 and £610,000,000. The paper adds: “If Italy gets only one-fifth the amount of our reparations it means that France’s suffering was five times greater during the war. —A. and N.Z. Assn. MORE ABOUT THE TERMS. ITALY WELL TREATED. LONDON, Jan. 28. An atmosphere of great cordiality marked the conclusion of the Italian debt negotiations. The total debt to Airitain was £611,000,000, against vfcjjqch Count Vo'pi claimed a refund ol “22,000,000 of gold deposited in London during the war. Mr Winston Churchill, at the ceremony of signing the agreement, declared that Cabinet had allowed him wide latitude in order to give consideration to Anglo-Ita l ian friendship. It was noteworthy that the agreement was in nowise mixed up with reparations. A clause in the agreement protects Italian currency in event of abnormal depreciation due to payment ol debts abroad, while in event of Britain receiving more from reparations and Allied debts than she has paid to America, Italy’s share of such surplus will be credited against future payments. Mr Churchill, in the course of an interview, however, said that Britain, up to th e present, had paid £100,000,000 and had received £25,000,000 from reparations, while so far nothing had come from war debts. —Repter.