VIEWS ON WAR DEBTS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5309, 6 August 1928, Page 4

VIEWS ON WAR DEBTS

MORAL CASE AGAINST AMERICA,

“It fell to my lot during the war to be the official draftsman in the British Treasury of all the financial agreements with the Allies,, and with the United States out of which tills

situation lias arisen. I was intimately familiar day by day with the reasons and motives which governed the character of the financial arrangements which were made. In the light of the memories of those days I continue to hope in due coulrse, and in her own time, America will tell us th.a.t she has not spoken lien last word” (writes Mr J. M. Keynes, in the “New Republic”). ' ■ Mr Keynes submits the- following facts and conclusions :— “We shall be paying to the United States each year for sixty years a sum equivalent to two-thirds, of the Cost of our navy, a sum nearly equal to our State expenditure on education, a sum which exceeds the total burden of our prej-way. debt. Looked at from another standpoint, it represents more than the total normal profits of our coal-mines nnd mercantile marine added together.

With these sums we could endow

and splendidly house every month for sixty years one new university, one new hospital, one institute, of research etc., etc. With an equaj sacri-

fice over an equal period, we: could Abolish slums and re-house in comfort the half of our population now inadequately sheltered. “On thei other, hand, we are now receiving from our Allies; and from Germany an important contribution, as an offset to what we ourselves pay to the United States. It will be interesting to establish a rough bal-ance-sheet.

“In 1028 we shall Deceive from oufi Allies £12,800,000, and pay the Urtitexl States £33,400,000; and by 1933 thfese figures will have risen, to £17,700,000 and £37,800,000. Thus, apart from our share of German reparations we shall be paying annually in respect of. war debts about £20;000,000 more; than w-e receive. Now, if the Dawes annuities are paid by Germany .in full we shall come, out; just about ‘a.ll square.’ “For ’the n,onnal Dawes annuity, when it has reached its. full fig,ure (less the service of German leaps, etc.), will amount to £117,000,000, of which Great Britain’s share (excluding the receipts of other parts of the Empire) will be about £22,000,0001 Mr Ohurchill has estimated that in the current financial year, 1928-29, our repayment will be £32,800,000 and our total receipts nearly £32,000,000. “It is not. probable that these receipts will be realised in full, but it will enable us to summarise the situation, if we assume for the moment that they are so realised, pl this case leach Ally would be able to pay the United States out of its re*ceipts from Germany. When the Allied debt. payments to the United States will have reached 'their 'maximum amount undew the existing settlements tliey will total £83,000,000 per'annum (the average amount payable annually over th& whole period works out at a total of £61,000,000. “If we: add to this the di'tecti American share in German reparations the United States will be receiving £78,000,000' annually out of thei £117,000,000 receivable by the Allies from Germany, or 67 per cent., plus £101,000,000 from Italy.hot covered by reparations; or; If we take, the average payment. In. lieu of the m.axrnum, the United States will be receiving £66,000,000 out of £117,000,000, on '57 per. cent, in either case, Great Britain would; receive, on balance, nothing.. “It follows fi;om the ,a.bove that, if the maximum Dawes annuities were to be netuced by one-third l —which, in the opinion of many of us,, is highly probable—the United- States; will, by the time that the 'Allied payments to her have reached thjeir full figure, be the sole beneficiary. In this event, the n,et result of all war-debt settlements would' be to Ica.ve the United States—on balance, and off-setting receipts against payments—receiving from Germany £78.900,000: pe annum, and no one else getting anything.

“I have put the calculation, in this form because it renders it vQry clear why, in the minds of the Allies, the question of further relief to Germany is intimately bound 1 up with the question of their own obligations to the United States. The official American attitude that there is no connection bqtwen tlie two is a vfcry hollow pretence. The resettlement of the Dawes scheme is one to which the United States must be, in one: way or another, a, party. But—let me add'—any con,ctession she may make will go entirely to the relief of Germany an,d the European Allies, Great Britain, adhering, to her principle of receiving nothing on balance. “If all, or. nea.rly all, of what German pays for reparations has to be used not to explain thje damage done; but to repay the United States for, tthe financial part which she played in the common struggle, many will fec,l that this is not an outcome: tolerable, to the sentiments ’of mankind o 1 ’ in reasonable aecorcl with the spoken professions; of Americans when they enteted the war or. afterw.a.rds. Yet it Is a delicate matten, keenly the public may feel, for any Englishman in authority to take the initiative in saying such things In an official way. “Obviously, Great Britain must pay what she has covenanted to pay, and any proposal, if there is to be one, must: come from the United States.”