WAR DEBTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5017, 23 August 1926, Page 4

WAR DEBTS.

AMERICAN DEMAND FOR PAYMENT

PAST REPUDIATION BY STATES.

At the present time, when the people of the United States are demanding that the several nations of Europe pay their debts to Am -ica, it is interesting, and will no doubt be surprising to ma,ny, to learn that the repudiation of public debt is by no means unknown in the past history of the United States. Professor Raymond Turner, of the John Hopkin’s University, contributes an article to “Current History’’ under the title “Repudiation of Debts by States of the Union.”

In his article Professor Turner tells how several States- comprising the United States- of America have, at various times, repudiated their debtsHe further informs us that many of the bonds representing the-b repudiated obligations are held by European investors. Professor Turner goes- on to state: —

“It has. been urged that the debts contracted by the Southern Stateo during the reconstruction were imposed upon them by dishonest and rascally oppressors-, while these States were being held down as a conquered country ; and that much of the money was stolen or wasted, and brought the Southern people no advanage, consequently the States have no obligation to repay. Recalling what happened in the South at this time, one cannot help understanding what prompts this contention. Such reasoning is very dangerous, however. Through similar arguments, repudiation of the Russian debts was justified by the Bolsheviki. Whatever the conduct of the reconstruction officials that took charge of the money borrowed by the Southern States, the loans were made to the governments- legally constituted for the time being. The approved procedure has been to’ punish defaulting officials, not repudiate Government faith.”

“If, however, the Southern people believe it, and bring it about that the American people in general accept theii’ conclusion, that the. Government of the United States, because it was holding the Southern States in the years, after the Civil War, is properly responsible for >vhat its agents did there, then much may be sajd for .the contention that the- Federal Government should assume these debts. In 1907 the report of the foreign creditors said : ‘ln the case, of debts incurred by State Governments, established by the direct intervention of the United States Congress after the Civil War, it certainly seems clear that it is- the moral duty of the United States Government o see that a settlement is made with the creditors.’ ’’

The bcief of the inhabitants of the French village of Suaucourt, near Gray, in the department of the Taute Saone, that all the houses in the village are haunted, has led to an interesting geological discovery. For nearly twenty years (says the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Mail”) the priest has been pestered by parishioners with s,tories of mysterious spirit rappings. He dismissed these as absurd, until, the reports, became so persistent that he spent a night in one of the supposed to be haunted rooms. The abbe was obliged to confess that he hea,rd inexplicable rumblings and rushing sounds. The village is on a rocky, broken plateau, and he set oiut to explore the surroundings, in detail. He was soon surprised to find small fissures in the rofeks, from which, on very cold days, vapour issued. He sent to Paris for a scientist, who, after a fortnight’s research with microphones and special ■appartus, has determined the existence beneath the foundations of a village of a huge subterranean cavity. This the scientist estimates to be at least 600 feet deep, and separated into two sections, in the bottom,df which is a roaring river. The action of the waters of this river produces from time to time collapses of rock and mysterious rushing sounds.