WAR DEBTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 30 November 1926, Page 4

WAR DEBTS.

The amount of the American war debt outstanding is J now about £932,000,0U0. The amount still due to Britain from her various allies is about £2,100,000,000. Therefore, the balance is well on the credit side of the ledger. However, of this total, £722,000,000 is represented by loans to Russia, ami this, perhaps, must be written off as lost irretrievably. For some years Britain endeavoured to obtain from the Soviet an acknowledgment of this debt, but the attempt seems to have been abandoned as hopeless. Among the others, the total amounts outstanding from France, Italy and Roumania are £797,400,000, £270,750,000, and £31,200,000 respectively. Jugo slavia, Portugal and Greece ' owe her sums which, though smaller, are substantial in the aggregate. And while year in year out Britain has paid the stipulated toll to America, she has had, in the past, to be content, as far as her own debtors were concerned, majnly with rather vague assurances that they would honour their l>£iul some day. They pleaded the inadequacy of the reparation payments by r Germany as an excuse for their backwardness. But with the adoption of the Dawes scheme, and the funding of the French, the Italian, and the Roumanian debts, matters have been put on a more regular basis. In the agreement with France last July, the American payment was made, so to speak, the measure of French liability. If at any time British receipts from reparations and allied debts! exceed British payments to the United States, there will be a corresponding reduction in the next French payment. Conversely, it thereattei British receipts from these sources fall short of the amount due to the United States, France will have to make up the deficit to the extent of previous abatements. In other words, satisfaction of the annual American claim is* the sole end sought.