GREAT POSSESSIONS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2309, 30 November 1925, Page 5

GREAT POSSESSIONS

AMERICA AS SKYHOOK. WHY EUROPE HATES THE U.S. “There is no denying that Americans are not popular in Europe,” writes Mr Frederick Palmer in “Collier’s Weekly.” “While statesmen bargain and speak the language of diplomacy the masses of Europe see Uncle Samuel with dollar marks for the pattern of his waistcoat and a bag of swag hanging from his belt. He is an international Shylock when he is collecting debts; a boastful Croesus when he is not.

“Eleven billion dollars in principal and interest which Europe owes America—about 150 dollars for each person in the United States. "It is more than hYlf the value of all our railroads and their equipment. It Would buy all the motor vehicles in the United States twice over. When it had paid for our annual agricultural products there would be enough to spare to pay for all our livestock. “Our farm implements and machinei*y could be replaced four times over leaving sufficient margin to replace all our telephone systems. "In order to pay us the debtor nations must sell abroad more than they buy; they must take In more than they pay out. ' On paper that Is not happening. The trade balance in our favour for. the fiscal year 1925 was more than a billion dollars —over 43 millions more. In a time of peace, not counting the debt instalments from England, we would seem to be getting richer and richer and the rest of the world poorer and poorer. "This appears to justify the European question of how Europe is to pay us money when we have all the money. It is our own action that convinces Europeans that we have a corner of the world’s wealth. They read of the fabulous fortunes of our Fords and Rockefellers, of the vast sums given to education. “ Bui; the average European is warranted in thinking that every American is rich. He sees Shylock, the collector of debts, spending money as freely as if dollars grew as plentifully as wheat. We send three or four hundred thousand tourists abroad every year.

“But Europeans do not see the hundred and thirteen millions left at home. They do not see the Americans who have much less than their share of the national wealth, the Americans who are labouring in the fields in the sun or in factories or offices or those who guard precious savings bank books in which small weekly amounts are registered.

“We have not hurried Europe about the debts. We are ready to make terms for instalments over a long period, and have asked this only when we were sure that Europe was in a position to begin paying. She ie now. Both Italy and Belgium are thriving. All of France’s invisible exports now balance her visible imports. If Europeans should see us at home on the day’s job Instead of on tourists’ sprees there might be a better mutual understanding.

"While we go to Europe to learn what she has to offer, there is one thing we can teach Europe. It is the folly of race hate. “And when she thinks that we are ungrateful because she ‘saved’ us, w« might mention how the Allies pleaded for us to crowd our soldiers on the tiansports. but—no matter!”’