DEBTS AND REPARATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21627, 23 April 1932, Page 11

DEBTS AND REPARATIONS

ACTION BY AMERICA POSTPONED INSTALMENTS AGREEMENTS IN LEGAL FORM (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, April 21. Formal requests have gone to the nations which have benefited by the oneyear moratorium, which expires next June, to place in legal form their agreements to pay the United States their postponed •war debt instalments over a 10-year period. This new element has stirred considerable interest because of its coinciding with the renewed clamour over cancellation or revision and the British Budget’s omission of the debt item, but State Department officials maintained that it was a routine step which has been delayed much longer than normal. Partly, at least, this was because the moratorium, beginning last July, was not ratified by Congress until mid-winter; Whether the Administration’s hopes for success of the Hoover proposal that the War Debt Funding Commission would be revived were a factor in the long delay was a matter for speculation. Congress put the quietus on that immediately after the suggestion was advanced, and 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 Administration accepted the situation, and had no intention of going any further. THE MORATORIUM. NO MOVE FOR EXTENSION. WASHINGTON, April 21. (Received April 22, at 9 p.m.) Official circles here received with noticeable satisfaction the announcement at London that the omission of debt payments from the new British Budget did not constitute a declaration of policy. “ That is fair enough,” observed Senator Reed, an Administration spokesman who was among the first to declare upon the recent British decision that the United States expected her debt payments after the one-year moratorium. Mr 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. ' *