CAN WAR DEBTS BE PAID?

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1931, Page 9

CAN WAR DEBTS BE PAID?

CANADIAN BANKERS’ DOUBT EFFECT ON WORLD’S TRADE DEPRESSION OF PRICES CREDITORS ALSO LOSERS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Sydney, Sept. 19. The Bank of Nova Scotia, which issues the ablest financial review in Canada, takes it practically for granted that Europe’s war debts can never be paid, states a Vancouver message to the Sun. It declares that Germany under the present ’arrangement must pay in excess of £90,000,000 annually for the next 58 years, and in other countries the grandchildren of children yet unborn must one day labour to discharge the obligations which have accumulated since 1914. Even supposing the reparations payments could in fact be made, the bank asks, are the creditor nations in a position to receive the sums proposed without Buffering a tetrangulation of their own export trade that would far transcend the benefit from the receipt of funds which are bwed them. Only goods remain as a means of payment and' -thie price decline has seriously depleted'the value of exports In the present and future. '• ' ' '" ’ I Thus it requires no stretch of ‘"imagination to visualise the trade competition that the present debtor countries would be compelled io force on their present creditors if they are actually to pay their debts by the only means possible—by increased production and export.