The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 5th, 1924. ENGLAND'S FINANCIAL BURDEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1924, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOV. sth, 1924. ENGLAND'S FINANCIAL BURDEN.

A witiTKit in tlie National Jtevicw remarks that alone among tlie nations, victorious and vanquished, which fought in tlie war, Kiiglaud is [laying stupellilou.s iinleiiinity to a loreign [mwer. The writer then proceeds: “.Fourteen months have now jiassed since .Mr Hollar l.aw's Cabinet accepted the ngiccmeiit which had been concluded on their behalf with the United States lor the repayment of the leans made to this country by the American (ioveniment during the war. It has been recently shown in the ‘Times’’ that the total amount of that debt at the date when the agreement was accepted stood at •l,!Mo.Ot)t),(>o<> dollars or Dl.tlol.iM 1,000. In the past year we in this country have repaid to the United (States 111,180,0(10 dollars, and it might ho supposed that the Knglish value of the debt had been reduced by a sum of at least £‘2o.()()U,0l)0. Nothing of this hind has happened however. 'The rate of exchange, has gone against us, and the value of our debt in KngJish currency was actually £1 ,]27,!)01>.t;00 on the anniversary of the date when the agreement was approved. This alouo stamps the transactions as extraordinary. Here is a debt, which, the more you jiay it olf,_ the bigger it grows—a real Sisyphus’s stone to he rolled eternally up hill by the British people. Tho explanation is that the payment of tho debt depresses the rate of exchange against this country, and makes tho position of the British taxpayer even more didicut. Before this colossal burden was imposed no sort of inquiry was conducted as to whether the British people, after their fearful sacrifices in blood and money in the Allied cause (which was also the United States cause) during the war, were able to bear it. The mere suggestion that Germany ought to lie called upon to find a very moderate amount for reparations brought from all kinds of soi-distant economists and financiers demonstrations that she could not possibly pay. No one in the United States or anywhere else bothered about the burdens of the British nation;, all the sympathy went out to the nation which had assailed freedom and not to the nation which had defended it. Yet this sum of £1,100.C00,C00 is not far from twice our total National Debt on the eve of the Boer War. It is much more than our National Debt at tho close of the Napoleonic wars, and that debt in a century we were not able very markedly to reduce. AYo. are committed to the payment of this whole immense sum in sixty years, and we are further condemned to pay it in American currency or gold. AVe are not allowed to employ British currency or goods, f.et me further point out that while nincompoops in this country professed that- the payment of a largo amount by Germany for reparations would injure British interests and British industry, no one in the United States was found to pretend that tho American people would suffer by receiving tribute from Great Britain.”