The Hawera Star. MONDAY. OCTOBER 27, 1930. BRITISH AND RUSSIAN DEBTS.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 27 October 1930, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY. OCTOBER 27, 1930. BRITISH AND RUSSIAN DEBTS.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'clock In Hawcra, Manaia, Kaupokonni, Otakeho, Oeo, Pihama, Opunake, Normanby. Okaiawe Eltham, Ngaere, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna. Te Kiri, Mahoe, Lowgarrh, Manutahi, Kakaramea, Alton. Hurleyville Patea, Whenuakura, Waverley. Mokoia. Whakarnara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

The formation of a British and Rus|sian committee for the purpose of negotiating upon the claims and counterclaims of Great Britain and the Soviet has centred interest again upon a subject that had become rather vague in outline with the passage of the years. There has been an inclination to forget that the Soviet Government asserts that it deserves considerable payments from Great Britain and others of the Allied nations as compensation for their intervention in the Russian civil war. There has also grown up a vague belief that Great Britain and the other creditors of Russia had written off the vast debts that the Bolshevists repudiated upon forming a Government. One of the important clauses, however, in the agreement under ■which the - MacDonald Government resumed diplomatic relations with the Soviet related to ( those claims and counter-claims. The claims of Great Britain are easily understood, and refer to governmental loans and private capital invested in Russia. The Soviet Government renounced responsibility for the repayment. of the first-named, and confiscated for its own use the enterprises in Russia in which British capital had boon placed under concessions granted during the Czarist. regime. The Soviet claims are, in some respects, the more interesting. The Soviet authorities consider that the allied Powers which sent troops and munitions to Russia in the civil war period thereby committed an act of illegal intervention and should be held responsible for the resulting damage. Great Britain has recognised fhat there is justification for the coun-ter-claims, and the British and Russian Debts Committee has been appointed to sift the material. The question of most interest is, in the circumstances, whether the Soviet is capable of making restitution if and when the committee agrees as to the amounts involved. The opinion of a writer in a current review, who discusses the economic condition of Soviet Russia in the light of recent investigations, is “that the Soviet Government cannot pay and never will be able to pay its foreign obligations, except in a very small way, either as a trader or as a State debtor,” and this is the conclusion of not a few wellinformed persons. The duty of the British and Russian committee therefore [consists rather in reaching a working agreement for the settlement of the claims upon a practicable basis than in assessing the total obligations of the two claimants. As the Manchester Guardian states: “Both sides can, if they insist, put forth astronomical figures, but it is as useless to expect the Russians to pay the Czarist national debt as it is to attempt to calculate tlx*, amount of damage done in Russia by the British subsidies to Russian adventurers like Koltcliak and Denikin.

Wo cannot accept the principle of repudiation as a good basis for business, but we, can recognise the advantage of compounding with an insolvent debtor.” There is little to be said for the desperate forcing for payment of debts owing to Great Britain by a country which is capable of paying only a small portion of those debts, and the practical necessity is for an agreement that, recognising this fact, will place the international claims on a commonsense footing. In other words, Great Britain must no doubt be prepared to u-ritc off a large portion of the debts owing to her, coincident upon the Soviet Government doing the same in respect of the alleged British debt to Russia. The principle that the British Government must establish is that wholesale repudiation, as practised by the Soviet, is not a satisfactory bas’is upon which mutual confidence and financial relations may be re-establish-ed. It may be assumed that the British and Russian committee’s task will be no easy one, for there are many grievances to be aired, but the Soviet’s desire to promote trade with Great Britain is reciprocated, and therein lies an important incentive to endeavour to find a basis for a settlement and for business co-operation.