WAR DEBT ISSUE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 36, 13 February 1933, Page 7

WAR DEBT ISSUE

AMERICAN ATTITUDE

APPARENT STIFFENING

CONCESSIONS WANTED

United Press Association—By Electric Tele^

graph—Copyright.

"WASHINGTON", February 11.

A further crystallisation, apparently, of the American attitude that Europe must make, concessions for any modification of the -war debts seems to be indicated by various expressions today from bi-partisan sources.

Senator J. H. Lewis, iv a speech in the Senate, called for a cancellation of the plans for a review of the British debt if it should be confirmed officially that Sir Ronald Lindsay has been instructed to inform the United States that Britain contemplates no quid pro quo. •

The Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Ogden Mills, in a speech at Kansas City tonight, declared: "The American people are entitled to compensatory advantages for any sacrifices they may be called upon to make," and insisted that "debtor nations can fairly be asked to make definite contributions to a common, programme intended to remove the barriers which now stand in the way of returning prosperity." The Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Mr. H. TV Bainey, speaking before the "Washington College of Law, declared that European suggestions for a 10 per cent, lump sum in settlement of the debts would not be acceptable, and warned Europe that repudiation would be an "unfriendly act," sure to be followed by "adequate measures of retaliation." -^

Mr. Silas Strawn, the well-known Chicago lawyer, in a radio address, declared that organised business believed that any fair settlement should assure access for American goods to European markets "on a fair competitive basis." .• . v