WAR DEBTS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1933, Page 8

WAR DEBTS

TARIFFS AGAINST UNITED

STATES

MR AM ERA’S SUGGESTION

LONDON, December 8

Tlie IH. Hon. h. S. Ainery, ing at Birmmgnam, sa.d ihat ; wuat-

ei-or fuse liiimit tie .said about the

American yiiust.ou 0.,e tiling mis clear, bleat Britain could not lefuae

payment simply beau use paying was unpleasant' no because others wore njv Honouring their ooligations to her.

it-pa-diu men or default uas a very ,ui.'..lJ‘-ki-edgeil \veai x joa for a- country dice tv.eiu ihi'taai, which was ‘-till

to-day t..i* giv..test crtciuor nation in

the world, a country, which, apart rrem war debts, was owed by the rest of the world £4,000,1)00,1X1), tour tunes as much or mole than she owed to the United States.

The consequences of default on Britain's part would strike her in’ the face from every quarter. At this moment she was engaged m insisting by every form of economic pressure on the Irish Fro© State fulfilling, obligations it undertook to her. Were we now to admit that we had been in the wrong and that Mr do Valera was right in saying that a nation’s pledges meant nothing if their fulfilment happened lo be inconvenient? No. Great Britain could not repudiate. In the last resort the Americans were entitled to point to the letter of Great Brian’s signed bond and the fact that that Loud was repeated agam after the war by Mr Baldwin when the rate of interest on her debt was reduced.

No repudiation, but th > next question was: Could Great Britain pay? The first problem in respect to that was whether she could find money here, and the second whether, having found it, she could effectively transfer it into dollars on the other side of the Atlantic. In regard to the first question, it was not heyornl her capacity, especially if she could secure the effective restoration of her trade and industries 1 . It was far letter to .sus,nerd the sinking fund for the time being than to delay the restoration of national prosperity. On the question of transferring the money, Mr .-Vinery said the great difficulty in the past had been in p n, rt America’s own refund to take British goods, and-Great Britain’s own equal responsibility because she had gon, ? on taking American goods in altogether disproportionate quantities merely to fulfil a political tradition.

CUTTING DOWN' PURCHASES. “Sinext the war,” he said, "we. have h?m .paying very nearly £150,000,(XX) a year more than we have sold. Even in the last year we have paid PCO.OOiX--OCO move than, we have sold. If we are to pay the war debt we can, hut w.p can only do it by cutting down drastically onr • purchases from the United -States absolutely to the minimum of tho.se things we cannot buy from anywhere else-

“A morion must understand she cannot have it both wavs; she can have It in debts or in trade, but she. cannot have both, and I believe if that is made clear to the United States jt wifi do far more to bring ns sooner to the position where a satisfactory settlement can he made than any amount of reasoned dispatches to sav that our payment? woui’d hurt the world at large, and incidentally tho United States as well.”