AMERICA REASSURED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 11

AMERICA REASSURED.

DEBT MORATORIUM.

QUESTION OF EXTENSION.

GENERAL MOVE UNLIKELY.

REPAYMENTS EXPECTED.

NOTICE SENT TO POWERS.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received April 22, 6.25 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 21.

Officials at Washington received with noticeable satisfaction an announcement from London that tlie omission of mention of debt repayments from the British Budget did not constitute a declaration of policy. "That is fair enough," observed Mr. D. Reed, Republican member of the Senate for Pennsylvania, a Government spokesman, who was among the first to declare that the United States expected payment of the debts due to her after the end of the one year moratorium. Neville Chamberlain's statement is generally accepted as an assurance that no general move for an extension of the moratorium will be made by the debtor nations of Europe. Formal requests have been sent to the nations that benefited by the moratorium (which will expire next June) to place in legal form their agreements to pay to the United States their postponed war debt instalments over a 10-vear period. This new element has stirred up considerable interest because it coincides with a renewed clamour over the cancellation or revision of the debts and with the omission from the British Budget of the debt item. However, State Department officials maintain that it is a routine step which has been delayed much longer than the normal time. Partly at least this was because the moratorium, which began last July, was not ratified by Congress until mid-winter.

Whether the Government's hope for the success of the proposal made by the President, Mr. Hoover, that the War Debt Funding Commission be revived, v, r as a factor in the long delay was a matter of speculation. However, Congress put the quietus on that immediately after the suggestion was advanced. At every opportunity members have reasserted their unalterable opposition to anything bordering on cancellation moves by this country. There has been every indication that the Government accepted that situation and had no intention of going any further.