AMERICAN MONEY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 13

AMERICAN MONEY

FLOWS INTO EUROPE TOURIST INVASION BREAKS ALL RECORDS American tourists in Europe this year will pay the annual instalments their funding agreements to the United States Treasury. It is estimated that between 400.000 and 500.00 American citizens will go to Europe during 1927. They are expected. on the basis of previous experience. to leave over there an average of 1.000 dollars apiece. This works out at a sum somewhere between 400,000.000 dollars and 500.000.00*> dollars. All that debtor Europe has Pledged itself to pay creditor America whelmingiy the lion's share of that total is due from Great Britain--160.150.000 dollars. The rest of th annual payments (for 1017) are as Belgium 3, 000*000 Cr echo-Slovakia 3.000.000 Esthonia 4$ 4.260 Finland 314.300 France 30,000.000 Italy 5.000.000 Latvia 201.710 Lithuania 6.262.250 Poland TOURIST INVASION TO E RERECORDS Indications are that the American

will be a record-breaker. In 1926 the passport division of the State Department issued 176,033 passports—highwater mark until now—and in 1927. judged by applications thus far this year, the number will aporoach 200,000. It needs to be remembered that thousands of passports are made out in the names of husbands, wives and families, one of Uncle Sam’s parchments thus often serving the purposes of half a dozen persons. Washington authorities say at least one-half of the Yankee tourist gold scattered about Europe from season to season is spent in France, and the most of that in Paris. The expectation is that French booty from this source in 1927 will fall not far short of 200,000,000 dollars. The probability is that French railroads, steamship lines, hotels, “pensions,” pleasure resorts, dressmakers and milliners, will be enriched by more than 200,000,000 dollars. FRENCH PAYMENT MERE BAGATELLE France’s 1927 debt payment to us. if the Mellon -Berenger funding agreement is ratified, amounts to a bagatelle of 30.000.000 dollars. In addition to that instalment, however, the French are paying us 20,000,000 dollars a year as interest on the surplus war stocks they bought from our army and navy after the Armistice. This 5 per cent, on 400,000,000 dollars has been regularly met by the Purls Government. But even these aggregate French annual stipends in our favour represent only about a quaretr of the money our pepole will expend for what economists call “services.”

Most of the rest of American tourist expenditure finds it way into British hands. There is little doubt that the sizeable sum John Bull must pay Brother Jonathan (169,000,000 dollars odd), will be fully accounted for by the disbursements of United States citizens in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and by the cost of travelling to the British .Isles in liners flying the Union Jack—a habit in which many Americans habitually indulge. LEARNED SOMETHING THEY DIDN’T KNOW Not long ago some distinguished Americans who favour revision of the European debt settlements and eventual cancellation, learned something at Washington that they didn’t know before (says the Ban Francisco “Chronicle). They came here with the argument that it’s rough on Old World nations to have to pay the United States burdensome annuities growing out of our “common war,” while the American tariff “shuts out” foregn

goods that might be sold to us and thus help our debtors get from under. These well-meaning, but underinformed Amc ricans were surprised when told that not less than 65 per cent of the merchandise imports of the United States comes in duty free. That is to say. it doesn’t have to pay tariff rates. Last year America received from foreign countries 2,880,150,000 dollars' worth of stuff, mostly raw materials and foodstuffs, on which Uncle Sam didn’t collect a nickel of duty. DEBT-COLLECTING POLICY BREEDING REPRISALS

Among the principal free importr were rubber with a value equal to 11.4 per cent, of the import totla, news? print, 2.8 per cent.; wood pulp, 2.1 per cent.; furs, 2.7 per cent., and tin, 2.4 per cent. All these were largely imported from the British Empire or other debtor European nations and thsir possessions. Capital of European debtor nations is also largely interested in the production of petroleum in Mexico, which formed 2.8 per rent of our total imports; copper in Afric? and South America, which formed 2.1 per cent., and fertiliser in Chile, which amounted to 1.6 per cent, in 1923. The duty-free articles that thf United States purchases in immr>nw quantities abroad include crude rubber, raw silk, coffee, newsprint, petroleun and products, paper base, storks iu wood pulp, furs, tin, hides and skins, vegetable oils, sawmill products, fer iilisers, art works, unmanufactured cotton, cocoa, beans and tea. AMERICAN POLICY BREEDING / REPRISAL American Federal economic authorities admit that our debt-collecting policy is unquestionably and steadily breeding a “reprisal” programme in many sections of Europe. The French Parliament, for example, is by way of imposing new tariffs on impor a of American manufacturers, which, if enacted, are bound to deal a heavy blow to profitable sales in France of such goods as oil, automobiles, typewriters and other Yankee specialties hitherto freely bought in that country.