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Show MONEY TO LEND, BUT NOT TO PAY DEBTS. The Franco-Russian compact under which each nation agrees to fly to the aid of the other in case of "attack" i has little of practical interest to the ' United States. There is one alleged Franco-Red understanding, according to press reports however, which ought to provoke some comments in the United States. It is stated that under the agreement France agrees to lend to Russ'a the sum of 3,500,000 francs, most of the outlay to be used by the Red government in modernizing moderniz-ing its railway system so this would be of greater use in case of war. When France or any other debtor European nation makes arrangements to lend money to another nation for industrial or military purposes, the matter is certainly one of interest to the United States. For it is to be remembered re-membered that the French owe us considerably on account as a result of what they borrowed from us when we were "saving their bacon" in the last war. For some time now France, along with other nations, has been a defaulter so far as these debts are concerned. We are told that France is poor and no longer able to pay. Yet along comes a chance to line up Russia for future military activity and suddenly we hear talk about lending the Russians, who still owe plenty of people themselves, the magnificent mag-nificent sum of three and a half billion bil-lion francs. Certainly if the French can afford to lend Moscow any such sum they can afford to scrape together toge-ther a little on account of what they owe the United States. The talk about poverty and inability to pay sounds like the strongest and coarsest sort of baloney. It is stated that the United States has the right to demand of the defaulting de-faulting nations that they float bond issues in their own countries to pay these war debts owing to Uncle Sam. So far as most people know, such a demand has never been made but we have sat calmly around, watching the rest of the world waste its money on prospective future wars. Certainly it is about time to take some steps toward to-ward collecting these war debts if it is humanly possible. The Franco-Russian Franco-Russian proposed three and a half billion franc deal ought at least to be an inspiration for Uncle Sam to try something. k |