Manawatu Daily Times Getting It All

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6671, 26 July 1928, Page 8

Manawatu Daily Times Getting It All

“It fell to my lot during the war to be the official draftsman in the British Treasury of all the financial agreements with the Allies and with the United States,” says Mr. J, M.. Keynes, in an article in the. New . Republic, an American weekly, analysing the relation between war debts and reparations. “In the light of the memories of those days I continue to hope in due course, and in her own time, America will tell us that she has not spoken her last word. ”

Mr, Keynes sets out a rough balance-sheet of the position when payments by Germany, under the Dawes plan, and by the Allies to the United States will be at their maxima. The former he places at £117,000,000 and the latter at £83,000,000. “If we add to this the direct American share in German reparations the United States will be receiving £78,000,000- annually out of the £117,000,000 receivable by the Allies from Germany, or 67 per cent., plus £10,000,000 from Italy not covered by reparations.

“It follows that, if the maximum Dawes annuities were to be reduced by one-third—-which, in the opinion of many of us,.is highly probable—the United States will, by the time the Allied payments to her have reached their full figure, be the sole beneficiary,” says Mr. Keynes; “In this event, the net result of all the war-debt settlement would be to leave the United States—on balance and off-setting receipts against payments—receiving from Germany £78,000,000 per annum, and no one else getting anything;' '

I have put the calculation in this form because-it renders it very clear why the question of further relief to Germany is intimately bound up, with the question of obligations to the United States. The official American attitude that there is no connection between the two is a very hollow pretence. The re-settlement of the Dawes scheme is one to which the United States must be in one way or-another, a party. But—let me add any concession she may make will go entirely to the relief of Germany and the European Allies, Great Britain adhering to her principle of receiving nothing on balance.”