WAR DEBTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 February 1925, Page 2

WAR DEBTS.

TllK BRITISH NOTE. A CONCISE DOCCMEXT. .CBU4UAN AND N" Z. CAULK ASHOCIATION. LONDON, February l). The British Note to Frame in regard to debt, states that the British Government adheres to the principle of the Balfour Note, but says that parts o! Lord Cursan’s Note of August 11, 1923, referring to Air Bonar Isnv’s proposals of January, 1923, clearly are no hinge, applicable to the existing facts of the situation, as Lord Curzon’s Note was wiitten before the training of Have: Plan, and on the assumption that tin German liability would be fixed at a figure less than that adopted in the Dawes Plan, and that bonds of the kind that were contemplated in All Bonar Law’s plan were to lie issued. I’hese assumptions are no longer tenable, file principle of the Balfour Note is that Britain shall receive from Europe, payments equivalent to these which .she is under an obligation to make to ti. United States. The British Government < amiot accept a position in which this ] rimiple would only be achievable upon the basis of the full normal yield of the Dawes annuities, or n\ taking at face value debts which cannot at piescnt lie treated as good assets. The British Government has already consentd not merely to reduce its claim, against the Allies to an amount necessary to cover its own payments in r, spent of the British Mar debt to the Foiled States, but actually to apply the whole of the United Kingdom’s share of the Gorman reparations to that purpose. This means that Britain would not only take to her own charge, the whole of her war damagebut also eight hundred million sterling of foreign securities donated h\ her to tile genera! efforts before the United States entered the war. In the application of the Baltour Note to the existing situation, the British Government, remembering ..mt the inter-A.I lied debts were incurred in a common cause, lias been prepared to consider proposals under which the existing French debt to Britain would he reduced, provided that the principle of definite payment by France from her own national resources is fixed with due regal'd to her relative wealth and taxpaying capacity and is assured without re fence to the reparations. The British Government, therefore, expresses the opinion that it might he found convenient for the French payments to be divided into, firstly, five annual amounts, to be paid by I'ranee, irrespective of the actual receipts from the Dawes annuities in any particular year: and secondly, a further annual charge on the French share of Hu Dawes annuities, it is. ol course, to be understock firstly that all counter claims bv France against Britain should lie superseded, and secondly that, if and when the payments derived by Britain from European war debts and

reparations were .sufficient to provide for the full discharge of British obligations to the United Stales over a full period of such obligations (includin' the payments already made) any sui plus is to be used to diminish the linden of Britain’s allies. 'I he British Government hopes that il the Trench Government is prepared to make proposals on the lines here suggested, s settlement satisfactory to both countries might he reached. The “Morning Host” Baris correspondent states that official quarters regard Air Churchill’s Note as a frank and friendly statement. Al. Hcrrict ■ genuinely pleased. Experts are no examining the clients ol the scheme.