TO MEET WAR DEBTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17950, 30 November 1932, Page 7

TO MEET WAR DEBTS

BRITISH PRESS PLAN REDUCE U.S. PURCHASES NEW PROPOSAL POSSIBLE (Elec. Tot. Copyright—United Tress Assn.) LONDON, Nov. 2d. Tito Daily Express, in a. displayed [ront-page story, demands a reduction of British purchases of American goods to the extent of the £60,000,000 needed to pay tho debt instalments in December and June, pointing out Hint Britain in 1931 bought £104.000,000 wortli| of American ‘goods, and sold her only £17.000.000. The newspaper says that this adverse balance made it impossible to buy dollars to meet the debt. Among the items of American products that the newspaper suggests Britain can do without aro: Motor cars, £4.400.000; radio apparatus, £700,000; apples, £4,000,000; iron and steel manufactures. £1,400.000: meat products, £6.700,000; oils and fats. C6.700.0C0; rubber manufactures. £950,000; manufactured wood, £1.700,000; barley, £1.500,000. The paper also emphasises that the drop in sterling in the past fortnight had increased the cost of the December debt instalment by over £1.500,000. The British debt note is ready for dispatch to the United .States by cable not later titan Wednesday, says the Daily Telegraph. According to the Daily Herald. Mr. Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, told the Government that default would lie disastrous to British credit. The Herald’s City editor believes that the plan now favored is the payment of the interest instalment equivalent to £13.500.000 at par and £21.000,000 at current rate of exchange, and a request to the United States for a. postponement of the capital payment of £6,160,000 at par and £9,000,000 at the current rate of exchange. It is considered almost certain that America, will agree to the latter. It is understood that as regards interest, Mr. Norman suggested payment partly in gold and partly in dollars, mainly the former. STILL FALLING STERLING ON NEW YORK (Received Nov. 30, noon.) NEW YORK, Nov. 29. A new low level was reached by the pound to-dtiy, closing at 4| cents lower at 315 9-16 cents. Official support was not evident, and dealers attributed the downward trend to the foreign war debt situation. Speculative manipulations also may have been a factor. The Canadian dollar closed | cents higher at 84 cents.