DEBT TO AMERICA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 157, 4 June 1934, Page 7

DEBT TO AMERICA

CHANCELLOR TO MAKE STATEMENT* FRESH ACTION NOT SUGGESTED. GAP IN VIEWS CONCERNS PRESS. (United Press Association.-—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.). Received June 4, 10 a.m. RUGBY, June 2. Within a few days the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Neville Chamberlain) will make a full statement in the House of Commons on the British Government’s attitude towards the war debt question. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt’s message to Congress is being carefully studied and it is noted that there are some points in it which are in agreement with the British Government’s views, particularly the reference to the upsetting effect on trade of the debt question. The terms of the message did not contain any suggestion for fresh action, either by 'President Roosevelt or by Congress. The newspapers regret that neither the arguments of the British Notes of December, 1932, which on this side appeared irrefutable, nor the subsequent discussions, seem to have had any effect upon American opinion and that at the moment it seems impossible to reconcile the British and American views. BROADSIDE COMMENT. The Times says: “On this side of the Atlantic there has been a widespread conviction that from the beginning the war debt had not the same moral validity as an ordinary commercial transaction ; that such validity' as it had was destroyed when, by the Lausanne agreements, negotiated on the United States’s initiative, Britain abandoned her claims on the war debt and the reparation payments due to her ; that the endeavour to carry out the 1923 funding settlement —under which Britain lias already paid 1,466,000,000 dollars —has been largely' responsible for the collapse of the international financial sy'stem, the economic, social, and political consequences of which have been felt all over ilie world and not the least in America: that the endeay'our, if renewed, will make impossible any' revival of international trade; and, generally, that it is illogical for the United States to press her debtors for paymen t so long as her tariff and shipping policy' make it impossible for them to pay in goods and services, which were the original basis of the debt.” The Times adds: “There seems nothing for it at the moment _ but to endeavour to keep the question open by some payment on account, not large enough seriously to dislocate exchange, and to continue to press upon our creditors for a final settlement by agreement.” “CEASE TO PAY.’-’ The Manchester Guardian says the gap between th American and European points of view is still so wide that there seems little hope of gaining anything by keeping up the pretence liny longer, and it asks: “Has not the time come when the only way to force a realistic settlement is to cease Jo pay? The Daily Telegraph urges that the time has come for the disclosure of the suggestions made by' Sir Frederick Leith Ross, the British economic advisor, at the last unfruitful discussion and of the counter-proposals offered by the American State Department in order that the public may know the width of the gap and whether it is bridgeable. THE DEBT MESSAGE. AMERICAN PRESS COMMENT. NEW YORK, June 2. While there was generally little or no comment editorially on President Roosevelt’s war debts message to Congress, even such leading newspapers as the New York Times confined itself to the non-aommital observation: “The message leaves everything much as it was. President Roosevelt was unable to indicate a single step that might lead the way out of the muddle.” The World Telegram, speaking for the powerful Scripps-Howard chain of 26 newspapers, to-day prints a very direct leader declaring: “War debts have value now only as trouble-mak-ers,” rather satirically observing that “it has been necessary for President Roosevelt to add to the words on war debts, which, if laid end to end, would carry the dispute to the farthest reaches of the stratosphere and dump it there where it belongs.” The leader adds: “The claims are good, but they are not worth anything.” It draws attention to America’s own broken pledge to pay. gold, and concludes that the debts are worth nothing, even for disarmament bargaining, as intimated in President Roosevelt’s message, since even the United States is “embarked on a vast armament race.”