THOSE WAR DEBTS

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1928, Page 9

THOSE WAR DEBTS

AMERICA’S HONOUR. CHAMPION FOR PEABODY. New York, Feb. 8. The now famons letter of Frederick W. Peabody to President Coolidge was adjudged the most devastating criticism which has yet appeared from anyAmerican source regarding the policy of the United States on British and Allied war debt repayments. Now comes a more devasting one, in the form of evidence volunteered t® aid Mr. Peabody in his campaign for a revision of the whole question of war debts. In a recent letter to the New York Times, Mr. Peabody said: “We have heard much about what our allies owe us, but who has said anything about what we owe them?” An answer to the query came from an active colonel of the United States regular army. He says:—“l feel sure that you did express the sentiments of honour, of Americans to whom the dishonour of America is a personal dishonour, and who resent the actions of those who are placing us in the catagory of Shylock. You ask very rightly what we owe our allies. To this question I reply by submitting from memory a few figures and data of what might justly be considered our debts to our allies as follows: — “Total time in war, April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918, 19 months 5 days. EXPRESSED IN DOLLARS. “While we were represented in the fighting prior to September 17, 1918, in several engagements, by units in size from a regiment to a division, we did not take a man’s part in the fighting until Sep'ember 12, 1918, when we, with allied assistance, took the St. Mieheal Salient. “It therefore seems that we do ourselves full justice when we say that we did a man’s share of the fighting for the last three months of the war. For the sake of easy computation, however, let us say we took a full part in the fighting for one-sixth of the full period of nineteen months, five days, which is quite a bit m. re than we can justly claim. “Then for one-sixth of the war period our losses were approximately: Killed, 50,000; wounded, 210,000. Placing a value of 50,000 dollars on each young man we lost, our life cost expressed in money, was two and a half billions of dollars.

"According to a report of the Medical Department, U.S. Army, the cost to the Government of those wounded during the same period of our activity wap. up to June 30, 1925, just over three billions of dollars. So the total cost of killed and wounded was five billion and a half dollars, disregarding the continuing cost of the wounded. “Since the enemy was on the run during the greater part of the period of our active participation in the fightting, it is fair to assume that our losses per month were less than they would have been the first five-sixths of the time, and before the enemy had broken. To be conservative, however, let us assume that they would have been the same. Then our losses, in men killed, would have been three hundred thousand, and, in wounded, a million two hundred thousand—or, expressed in money, thirty-three billions of dollars. The saving to us due to our allies doing our fighting for five-sixths of our war time is, therefore, twenty-seven and a half billions of dollars. MONUMENTAL OBLIGATION. “Now doesn’t it appear to you. as it does to me, to be a monstrous thing to demand the return of the advances made for our own benefit to our allies with more than a hundred per cent, additional we call interest, and to ignore our monumental obligation to them, for which they ask nothing? “For obvious reasons the name of my army correspondent cannot be disclosed, but I may give you the name of another to what he thinks about these alleged debts. In a speech at Denver in August, 1924, the Commander-in-Chief of the American armies in France ,said: ‘What was the situation in 1917? We had no plan, no preparation, no artillery, no transportation, no ships; in fact, nothing. If it had not been that the allies were able to hold the lines for fifteen months after we had entered the war, hold them with the support of loans we made, the war might well have been lost. We scarcely realise what those loans meant to them and to us. We were responsible. We gave the money knowing it would be used to hold the Boche until we could prepare. Fifteen months! Think of it! We sent our first men in June, and they were not ready to go into the front fines until the following year.”