DEBT REVISION.

Wairarapa Age, 16 December 1932, Page 5

DEBT REVISION.

GREAT BRITAIN’S STRONG CLAIM. CHANCELLOR’S IMPRESSIVE STATEMENT. HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATE. RUGBY, December 14. The debate on the American war debt payment in the House of Commons opened, with an impressive statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain. He said that only by examining the whole history of this affair was it possible to realise how strong was Britain’s title to claim revision, how consistently and persistently successive British Government had urged the cancellation of reparations and war debts how reluctantly other countries had accepted that view, but how steadily they had been forced by hard facts and bitter experiences to come closer and closer to the viewpoint originally expressed by the British Government. Having reviewed the recent negotiations with tho United States, Mr. Chamberlain continued: “In diplomatic circles we were given to understand that cash and cash only would content the members of Congress. If we had declined to pay, it would have been equivalent to default, and default by the British Government for a sum which we could not say we were unable to pay, would have resounded around the world and might have been taken as justification for other defaults in other circumstances. As a second alternative we might have asked that tho required notice for postponement of the principal be waived, but after a request for suspension of the whole payment, based on a very wide consideration, has been refused, it would not have been dignified to make the plea in forma pauperis and might have prejudiced the final settlement. Therefore, we decided on the third alternative to pay in full.” In the course of the debate that followed, Mr. Lloyd George said that the British was the only Parliament which had not been permitted to take a decision on the subject. The American Congress |rould decide, and the French, Italian and Belgian Parliaments had all decided. The poor old “Mother of Parliaments” was only allowed to gibber in a corner. The French Chamber had decided not to default but to say, “You must parley before we pay.” It was not repudiation for Britain to say: “There is a world cataclysm. We cannot collect the debts due to us and ask you to parley. We have been paying yearly out of the bread of our people when others have only paid one-fifth. If you are not prepared to talk to your debtors in the present emergency, we can wait until you do.” He asked Mr. Chamberlain when he paid now, to take a bold line and say, “ 1 This has got to stop. We are the greatest creditor nation in the world and in proportion to our population we are paying the heaviest taxation. It is to our honour to save the peoples of the world. We must be heard.’”—(British Official Wireless.)