WAR DEBTS

Taranaki Daily News, 7 June 1932, Page 5

WAR DEBTS

PLEA FOR READJUSTMENT.

AN AMERICAN VIEW.

That a not inconsiderable section of public opinion in the United States has long been in favour of a “scaling down” of war debts is well known. An interesting commentary on the problem is that °of the American Creamery and Poultry Produce Review of April 27, published in New York, an extract from which has been sent to the Dominion by Mr. W. M. Singleton, Director of the Dairy Division, Department of Agriculture.

In an editorial entitled “Our Foreign Debts,” the Review remarks: — “A speaker at last week’s convention of Kansas Egg and Poultry Shippers’ Association, in considering present and prospective economic conditions, stated that a reasonable readjustment of war debts would be necessary in any successful programme for a better and more stable order of things. The Review has been of like opinion—in fact, it has been our contention ever since' the termination of hostilities in 1918 that a prompt cancellation of the war debts owed this country would have been the soundest policy for all concerned, and of very real eventual economic benefit to the United States. “There was logic in a debt cancellation. We could thus have evened the score with our Allies who gave so largely of life in the struggle. We would have cancelled when money was cheap in relation to goods, and the burden would have been lightened by an improved financial condition of our customers and a vastly more valuable

goodwill. “We chose the more short-sighted course which has brought us, or certainly helped to bring us, nothing but ill-will and bad times. We told our Allies that they must pay, and then we denied them, by high tariffs and prohibition, the only ability they had to pay —through the sale to us of manufactured goods. . -a “Economists tell us that our tai iff barriers arc both a bar to the payment of war debts and a breeder of ill-will. Until that is recognised by our lawmakers we will find the road to recovery made the more difficult. We still have much to lose. We are the largest exporting nation. The Department of Commerce places our 1931 exports at over two billion dollars. 111-will or efforts at self-preservation abroad are certain to prune that total in 193-. England, a very large customer, is preparing to shut out more of our. products 0 with a newly-announced tariff of 20 per cent. “It may be too late to talk cancellation, but reason cries for a readjustment of our foreign debts, and a readjustment of many of our tariffs. Such a course would benefit American aguculture more than all the emergency Farm Board legislation Congress ever enacted.”