OCR Text |
Show DEBT REPEALING PR0MISE DENIED CLAIM THAT WILSON MADE SU9H SUGGESTION BRANDED AS LACKING TRUTH. Position at Peace Conference Declared to Have Been That Obligations by Allies to America Must be Paid. Washington. Not only is it untrue that President Wilson at the Paris peace conference promised the representatives repre-sentatives of the allied powers .that when the senate had ratified the pence treaty lie would make every effort to have the I'niled Stales jrovernment cancel the dchts owed to it hy the allies, hut" written proof exists that the president's position was quite to the contrary. In a responsihle and thoroughly thor-oughly informal official quarter this positive assertion was made Sunday night in answer to published statements state-ments Jhat the semite committee on foreign relations knew that t lie president presi-dent had yiven such assurances .at I Paris. The information that the senate committee had knowledge of a promise of that character by President Wilson became a matter of report in the capital capi-tal Saturday after Davis F. Houston, the secretary of the treasury, had appeared ap-peared before the committee on foreign relations at his own -request and informed it in confidence that J. Austen Chamberlain, the British chancellor chan-cellor of the exchequer, had made a. correct statement in bis speech at Birmingham, England, to the effect that (ireat Britain had made overtures to the United States for the caniylla- tion of the allied war debt to this government. gov-ernment. Little of the details of Mr. Houston's disclosures to the committee commit-tee have become known, but it was confirmed that he told the committee that- the proposal mentioned by Mr. Chamberlain and concerning which there has been so much official mystery mys-tery in Washington, had actually been submitted by Great Britain. Additional details obtained concerning concern-ing the British advances along this line brought to light that the proposal had come directly to the treasury department de-partment from Mr. Chamberlain as head of the British financial ministry and not through the medium of the state department or any diplomatic source. The suggestion was advanced about ten months ago, but not, in the bald form in which it has been understood under-stood to have been made. Great Britain, it was learned, had not asked that the United States cancel the British war indebtedness to this government, gov-ernment, but had explained to the treasury department. that, in the opinion opin-ion of the British government, it would be a wise procedure for all allied governments gov-ernments to cancel their foreign war debW. The proposal or suggestion of Mr. Chamberlain was that all "inter-, governmental" debts be cancelled. Assurances As-surances were, given-that if this met with the approval of the United States the British government would cancel all the debts owed to it by its allies. |