WAR DEBTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4869, 24 August 1925, Page 2

WAR DEBTS.

UNITED STATES AND BELGIUM. . AMERICA CRITICISED. It is apparent that European critics J will have much to say about America’s effort to collect the Belgian war f debt to the United States (says the | London correspondent pf the New york Times). To be anti-American is fashionable in certain quartern in almost all European countries, and '■ the Belgian debt gives material for - •< anti-American comment which rivals . ,i that of the evolution trial in nessee. Not much has yet appeared;-, in print about the debt of Americas former little ally, but one hears, much individual criticism. There is, of course, an tive oasis about the Belgian which does not apply to the other debts to the United States. Britain and France have obligations to America in which there are no flaws beyond those of sentiment, but with respect to the Belgian debt there are not only sentimental considerations, but others as well, notably the action of the Paris Peace Conference. f In other words, things can. be said about America’s collecting from Bel- J gium which cannot be said about collecting from Britain, France, - and - Italy, and those who do npt blame the United States for .collecting those debts do think she is wrong in making Belgium pay. - The chief argument heard, of . course, is that in Paris all the allied negotiators, including the Americans, . * agreed that Germany ought to take over Belgium’s debt, and the heroic _ little conutry was formally notified about it, because her creditors would. • get payment elsewhere, namely, from Germany, This was considered by the Belgians to be an agreement not only inside the Versailleg Treaty, but also outside it and somewhat independent of it. In recognition of the part she had played her war debt wfis to be> lifted from her.

Britain and France stand by; this . bargain and have not tried, nor have they any intention of trying, to make Belgium repay their war loans. Naturally, in the United States, America’s stand is understood when it is- said that the Treaty of Versailles does not bind her, and that President Wilson’s promise in Paris not to collect from Belgium does not count, since it went down in the general rejection of the Paris arrangements. But th ecffect of thfe policy is that America’s present effort to make Belgium pay what she borrowed for war , purposes, although America’s associates in the war are not doing so, causes a bad impression in many quarters which thing that America is right in collecting from the other allies. It makes the Shylock accusation ring truer in European eare. BLAMES POLITICS. The London Tinies, in an editorial on the Belgian war debts, expresses considerable sympathy for the per-- £ plexity of M. Hymans and all the members of the Belgian Chamber, and continues : “Belgium, after being definitely assured that her debts were cancelled, finds that owing to a change in Government in America that they are not. “It is intelligible that the American Government should desire to conduct its niternational financial affairs strictly on a financial basis. The Belgian Government undoubtedly appreciates this motive, which, in fact, regulates, its own customary transactions. But politics have confused the issue and left a pretty problem—to which America is Belgium under financial obligations ’ To the America of President WilsOn, which lent the money and. then cancelled the debt, \ or to the changed America, which ■ how claims payment?”