AMERICA’S AID TO BRITAIN.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLII, Issue 1803, 30 April 1921, Page 8

AMERICA’S AID TO BRITAIN.

It was announced recently by tlio Treasury at Washington that Great Britain had paid 25,000,000 dollars on account of her silver debt. It is only very recently, it seems, that public" light had been thrown upon the circumstances in which Great Britain came to need and to receive a large supply of silver from the United States. The Earl of Reading, the new Viceroy of India, told the story, into which India appropriately enters, at the farewell dinner accorded him by the English-speaking Union in London in February. He cited it as one of the instances of American goodwill to Great Britan which 'came closely under his notice while he was Ambassador at Washington. During the war every attempt was made to sow dissension in the Empire by insidious propaganda. This was a factor which contributed during the war to a great scarcity of silver. To quote Lord Reading: “There was a moment at which w t c were very hard-pressed to find the metallic reserve, particularly the silver which w r as necessary in India, it being incumbent that the paper note issue should bo convertible immediately into the silver rupee. Our difficulty was to find the silver. There was no means but one;‘that seemed impossible, "in the vaults of the American Treasury there were: vast stores of silver, preserved there as the financial backing against the notes' which were issued—silver which could not bo disturbed, no matter how much it was wanted. It could not lie taken out of the vaults of the United States save by Act of Congress.” Lord Reading went on to relate how the Administration at Washington and the members of Con gross, to whatever party they belonged, solved the difficulty by passing an Act of Congress without discussion.'' “because dicussion would have been serious.” The measure rvas enacted practically without debate in almost record shortness of time, and became law r within a few days. The vast millions -of ounces of silver from the vaults were released, and by arrangement between the British and American Governments were shipped to India. Nothing, we are told, was said of this, which seems just a little the more astonishing in the light of a reminder that the American newspapers knew as well us possible what was happening, yet forbore to mention it lest they should detract largely from the generosity of the service that was being rendered by the United States to the British Empire.