THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1933 AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 107, 19 April 1933, Page 6

THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1933 AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM.

“Hear the other side” is a good old Latin maxim and the other side, that is, the American side, of the war-debt question has recently been put by Professor Wright, of the University of Illinois, in an article appearing in an Australian exchange. He prefaces his disquisition by frankly admitting that he cannot defend the actions of the United States in accumulating gold and restricting foreign trade by high tariffs. At the same time, he does think that to blame the world’s debacle upon the war-debts is placing the emphasis upon a factor that could not contribute more than a small fraction to the troubles that have arisen. As he puts it, after the United States entered the world war loans were made to the Allies, some of them representing exports on credit sent to them before that country joined up. Then, after the war, the American Liberty Loan was floated to provide funds for the rehabilitation of Europe at a time when five million American soldiers were being turned loose without jobs and without income. During the time America was actually engaged in war, she not only paid her own debts, but also made loans to the Allies to pay their debts and to finance the purchase of war material. “Why then,” it is asked, “should the United States pay both the debts and expenses incurred by her during participation in hostilities and also the debts on the part of the

Allies? We sent men, money and equipment and also loaned money, and now we are told these debts should be cancelled. What about the vast losses and payments made to carry on the part the United States played? Who will reimburse her for these losses?”

The American professor’s contention is that the facts as to these debts and their origin have been greatly distorted in Europe, the blame being laid upon them for difficulties arising from quite other causes. Among these are cited the maladjustments arising out of European tariff barriers and —what can scarcely be laid at the door of the Allies—American speculation and mismanagement of the eredit system, as well as reckless American lending to Germany. Inferentially at any rate, this American writer would seem to acknowledge that the position now reached is as much due to the misuse by American financiers of their new role as the world’s big lenders—out of moneys taken from the Allies, Great Britain in particulars, prior to America’s declaration of war—as to any other cause. What he seems to be aiming at is to show that the general body of American taxpayers should not be called upon, in effect, to make good the mistakes made by American financiers in their private dealings with European nations—mainly, be it noted, with Germany. Answering him with another question, may it not well be asked why the Allied peoples should, even if indirectly, have to stand the consequences of these errors of which some of his own countrymen were guilty in their ignorance of how to handle their newly created international status.

Professor Wright also claims that the United States gained nothing in the way of material things or wealth out of the war settlements. He seems, however, to forget that she was afforded every opportunity to come in with the rest and take her share of both the advantages and the responsibilities that fell to the Allies’ lot after the war. But, with a magnificent gesture, she declined to have anything to do with either, and chose rather to pursue a lonely path and to make her own terms with the enemy. Nor does he seem to show in what way Great Britain, the biggest of America’s debtors and the one that received least consideration from her, made any collateral gains out of the war. On the contrary, without making any fuss about it, she disclaimed all right not only to German reparations, but also to the war-debts owing to her by her Allies,, excepting only to the extent that was necessary to meet her engagements to the United States entered into virtually as mere guarantor for those Allies. Nor does he seem to recall that, as spokesman for his nation,- the American President of the day openly declared that the moneys nominally lent to the Allies were merely by way of subsidy to them to enable them to keep the common enemy at bay while America was preparing to play her part in the field. It stands to Professor Wright’s credit that he does intimate that, compared with America’s other war debtors, Great Britain has not been very generously treated. But, generally speaking, he does not seem to make out any very convincing ease in support of the unbending attitude his Government has hitherto .maintained on the question of war-debts.