WAR DEBTS AND REPARATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20490, 8 March 1932, Page 13

WAR DEBTS AND REPARATIONS.

THE PROBLEM STATED. BRITAIN'S INTEREST BURDEN. Professor Maurice Gerothwohl in a , notable article in tho "Daily Telegraph," London, sums up the essential facts of the War debts and reparations problem. He writes: "The funded war indebtedness of the Allied Governments to the United States may be appropriately summarised, in round figures, in the following table:— Owing to U.S.A. Total funded Total paycapital and ac- ments over erued interest. (52 years £ £ Britain .. 945,000,000 2,282,000,000 France .. 827,000,000 1,407,000,000 Itaty .. 420,000,000 495,000,000 "Including the smaller Powers, the funded total of the Allied war debts to America was £2,371,000,000, in respect of which, over 62 years, America should receive a total of £4,553,000,000. "Great Britain, it will be observed, has treated her own Allied debtors much more leniently, although it was largely on their own behalf that she herself borrowed from America. The following table shows the position of Allied Europe's funded war indebtedness to Great Britain:— ' Owing to Great Britain. Total funded Total refunds capital and accrued over 62 interest. years. £ £ France .. 653,000,000 799,000,000 Italy .. 611,000,000 277,000,000 "Including the smaller Powers (but excluding Russia's unfunded debt of £900,000,000), the total funded war indebtedness of the Allies to Great Britain is £1,350,000,000, in respect of which, at the expiry of 62 years, she would have received, but £1,188,000,000 in all, that is, less than the debts actually funded. Britain's Losses All Bound. "A further interesting comparison between the British and American debtfunding settlements is afforded by the following table, which shows in percentages, calculated on a uniform basis of 5 per cent, interest, what proportion of its debt to America each country is paying:— Great Britain pays U.S.A. 72 per cent. France pays U.S.A. 42 per cent. Italy pays U.S.A.' 21 per cent. Of her total debt to Great Britain, France pays Great Britain 38 per cent. Italy pays Great Britain 14 per cent. "Especially instructive are the comparative rates of interest charged by America to her principal European debtors, viz.:— Interest on Debt to America. Britain. France. Italy.

"From 1970-1980 Italy pays 1 per cent., and from 1980 to 1987 2 per cent. "Britain pays 3J per cent, till 1984, and France 3$ per cent, till 1987. "It is true that, under the Balfour Note 6f July, 1922, Great Britain undertook not to require of its Allied debtors . greater Annual payments than, in combination with her Reparation receipts from Germany, would cover the service of her funded war debt to America. But, if Reparation payments were to cease, it would be useless for her to expect any increased payments from those Allied debtors. "Indeed, the- latter would almost certainly declare, on that very account, their inability to continue to pay Great Britain. "Thus we would be left saddled with an average annuity of £38,000,000 to be paid to America from 1933 to. 1984 out of the resources of. our own taxpayers instead of collecting, on an average, £21,500,000 a year from Germany under the Young Plan, £12,500, r 000 from France, £4,000,000 from Italy, and about £1,500,000 from the smaller Allies. Will America Accept Her Loss? . "If now we turn once more to America as the ultimate creditor of Europe, including Great Britain, it may he asked what she would lose by the cancellation of Reparations ana war debts? Tho answer is provided, indirectly, by the Youn" Plan and the agreements made at Tho Hague embodying it. She would forfeit a series of annuities from her European cft'btors rising from roughly £48,000,000. at tho present date to £85,000,000 in 1983-4. "Will America, for the sake of world restoration and prosperity, acquiesce in such a loss? Great Britain, it may be well to add, has practically lost every penny of the £900,000,000 owed Iter by Russia, and has paid out to America £200,000,000 more than she has received from her combined European debtors. That already represents a sacrifice of £l,loo,ooo,ooo—apart from the generosity 'of her concessions to France, Italy, and the European Allies generally." Public Opinion. • More than two thousand years ago Aristotle gathered »i> his little brief experience and, in his own masterful fashion, set forth his conception of public opinion as the considered decisions of the citizens of any community arrived at in accordance with the practices of logical thought," writes Mr Henry Kittredge Norton in the "Saturday Review of Literature." "Mankind lias spent the intervening millenniums in a gruelling struggle to attain a democratic form of government in which public opinion as conceived by Aristotle should be the guiding light."

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