The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JULY 6th, 1925. WAR, DEBTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 July 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JULY 6th, 1925. WAR, DEBTS.

In commending the stepis taken by the Washington government asking nine foreign Governments to begin paying the interest and principal of the debts owing to the United States, it is urged by many that in sheer justice to Great- Britain it will be necessary sooner or later to end the discrimination by which the British people —alone among the large Allies—are compelled to pay, stated the New York correspondent- of the “Daily Telegraph” recently. There is no official statement

mi ilm subject, but unoflicially one limls much evidence h> suggest that ■ •veil the most optimistic legislators al Washington ale convinced that the negotiation.', now initiated no mailer how the thing i' phrased or concealed can lead only to a substantia! reduitioii of debts. This view is emphasised by America’s leading independent newspaper, the "New Vnrk World,” which says: "The reduction may ho cllecled by a moratorium or by very low interest rates, or by some other limineial device neither the Ereneli nor the Italians can or will pay more annually than they can hope to collect front Germany.” That tin

one sure thing about the debts, according to the same journal, which we here should understand, and there is

also increasing recognition of the fact that Great Britain could not in fairness to her own taxpayers permit France or Italy to turn over to Washington an amount much greater than is paid to Great Britain. In this matter there is no leadership of opinion in the United States to-day, but opinion here, so far as one can analyse it in Xew York America’s great financial centre is behind Congress for the inevitable reduction of debts. How, it is asked, can the United States ask the British to pay Washington more than Franco pays Washington, or to accept less from France than Washington does? If that course is followed, would not the British lie right in raising the question, now apparently settled by agreement with the American Debt Funding Commission, and ask for a revision of the terms?