GREAT POSSESSIONS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 15 December 1925, Page 7

GREAT POSSESSIONS.

AMERICA AS SHYLOCK WHY. EUROPE HATES THE U.S. “There is no denying that Americans are not pupinar in Europe,'’ vines' Air r reueiicic Palmer in ''Coiner's Weekly." \ •'While statesmen bargain and speak the language ol uipiomaey tlie musses of Europe ane Luc e oamuel with dollar •manes lor tne pattern ox ins waistcoat ana a uag ol swag liang-iig lrom ms belt. lie is ail international Shylock when he is collecting aeucs; a Dorsum Uroesus wuen lie is not.

’"uneven bilnon dollars in principal and interest winch ilurope owes America —aoout IoU dollars lor eacn poison in tlie United States.

“it is more than iialr tlie value of all our railroads, and tlie.r equ.pmviu. It would uuy ail tne motor vehicles in tlie United■ States twice over. When it iiad pa.ti tor bur annual agricultural products thbre Would be enough lo spare to pay for all our livestock.

“c/ur farm implements unci macmnery could bo replaced four times" over, mavmg sutlicienc margin to replace all our telephone systems. “til order to pay us tlie debtor nation! must sell ■ abroad more than tuey buy; they must' take m mure onan tlmy pay out. On paper that is not happening. . The trade balance in uur favour tor the hseal year ikteo ,vas more than a billion dollars —over -Id millions'more, in a time or peace, not counting the debt insta.menus I from JMigiaud, we would seem to be getting richer and * richer and tlie rest or the world poorer and poorer. “This, appears to justify the European question of how iturope is to pay us money when we have all the money. It is our own action that convinces Europeans that we have a corner of t-lie world’s wealth. They read of tlie fabulous Yortgues of our Fords and Roekfeiidrs, of’’ 1 tlie vast sums given to educat.on. “But tlie average European is warranted in thinking that every American is rich. He sees Shylock, the collector of debts, spending money as freely as if dollars grew as plentifully as wheat. We send three or four hundred thousand tourists abroad every year. “But Europeans do not see the hundred and tnirteen millipns left at home. They do not see the Americans who have much less than their share of the national wealth, the Americans who are labouring in the fields in the sun or in factories or offices or those who guard precious savings bank books in which- small weekly amounts are registered. “Wo have not hurried Europe about the debts. We are ready to make terms for instalments over a Jong period, and have asked this only when we were sure that Europe was in a position to begin paying. She is now. Both Italy and Belgium are thriving. All of France’s invisible exports now balance her visible imports. If Europeans should sec us at home on the day’s job instead of on tourists’ sprees there might bo a better mutual understanding- , “While we go to Europe to learn what she. has “to offer, there is on? thing we can teach Europe. It is the follv of race hate. And when she thinks that we are ungrateful because she ‘saved’ us, we might mention bow the Al’ies pleaded for us to . crowd our soldiers on the transports, but—no matter!”