Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1926. BRITAIN’S DEBT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 2 December 1926, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1926. BRITAIN’S DEBT.

in ;i re‘*:*nt statement in the House ol‘ Commons, Air Winston Churchill directed attention to a fact that is sometimes overlooked. In respect of her war debt Britain, despite her immense loan from the United .States, is s'till by a very large margin a creditor nation. She has no reason whatever to be ashamed of her financial position. We arc apt to think of Britain as being impoverished and burdened for close upon two gen 1 orations to come with the crippling millstone of her liability to America. It is' quite true that for sixty years every man, woman and child in England will have to pay a pound a head annually to America, in accordance with the funding agreement' with America. Act this is not attributable to any improvidence on the part of Britain; and the debt which she is liquidating was not incurred for her own benefit. There is a tendency in certain quarters in America to regard Brithin as a prodigal, who, after borrowing recklessly and without thought of the future, feels aggrieved when the lender sends in the account. But Britain lias not complained, and there was no recklessness in her financial policy. Britain is owed by her allies more than she owes America. If the,\* would Only pay her she could immediately pay her American debt twice over. Her predicament is that of a man who is unable forthwith to meet a claim in full simply because his liquid resources have gone to accommodate friends whose payments have hitherto been so small as to be negligible. Atoreover, in her dealings with America, Britain was no mendicant; she was merely an intermediary. The United States prefered her security. Though tin; loans were ostensibly in the name of Britain, they were parsed on to her allied, supplemented by large sums ouf of Britain’s own pocket.