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Show Taking the War Debts Out in Travel a . Fiji , J sx - - -y - " M 3'? ! f " I $ s Americans would be able to enjoy the famed beaches of Deauville : . ,Yi,. ;i. -j r.ii:v:;SJ !;.!. and the romantic canals of glorified Venice, as well as the recreational - x and cultural facilities of all debtor nations, and their expenditures would . ! - apply upon the liquidation of the war debts, if the plan of Thomas D. LX..,., .fl llir -Mr O'Bryan, shown In inset, should be accepted. Americans would be able to enjoy the famed beaches of Deauville and the romantic canals of glorified Venice, as well as the recreational and cultural facilities of all debtor nations, and their expenditures would apply upon the liquidation of the war debts, if the plan of Thomas D. O'Bryan, shown In inset, should be accepted. By WILLIAM C. UTLEY SHALL we cancel the war debts? Ask any average American that, and the hair will begin to bristle on the back of his neck. "Cancel the war dehts? Well, I guess not I Those Frogs and Wops borrowed ull that dough In good faith; we raised It out of our own pockets In Liberty Loans, and now, by God, let 'em pay it back I" And there Mr. Average American will usually utter a derisive snort, turn away In disgust at the very IDEA of canceling a "business man's agreement" and stomp off, muttering to himself about the depths to which International Integrity has sunk when nations "whom we helped win the war" will gyp us out of our just rights. r If you had asked him (had he given giv-en you the chance) just what he would do If the debtor nations won't pay, according to the terms of the agreements, he will go red with anger and simply stare you down as though you had insulted him by even bringing the matter up. But, Finland excepted (good old Finland!) the debtor nations are NOT paying, and give little or no Indication that they Intend to pay In gold or dollar currency. Four courses lie open: To go on Insisting that the debtors live up to the letter let-ter of the agreement, and simply act frightfully righteous and annoyed an-noyed when they don't: to cancel the debts In part, hoping to salvage at least some of the loans; to cancel can-cel them altogether and forget about the whole discouraging mess, or to revise the means of payment to a form In which It will not be looked upon as so difficult by the debtor nations. Commercial Youth Has Plan. The United States Junior Chamber Cham-ber of Commerce believes It has hit upon a plan of revision of the method meth-od of payment which should prove acceptable to both this country and Its creditors. Certainly If It works It would make collecting the debt lots of fun for Americans and for foreign Innkeepers (until they got around to paying their taxes, at least). For the plan would allow Americans to travel in the debtor nations, na-tions, paying their way with credit certificates on those nations, which would be exchanged for domestic currency hy the foreign governments. govern-ments. Americans would pay the United States government for the certificates and the payments would apply on the war dehts; the foreign for-eign governments would float domestic do-mestic bond Issues to raise the money to redeem the certificates, thereby transforming the war debt from an external one to n Internal one. But that's getting a little ahead of our story. The United States Junior Cham-her Cham-her of Commerce and the ."MX) branches with which It Is affiliated are making some progress In getting get-ting the plan recognized. The efforts of SO.IKK) professional and business men between the ages of twenty-one twenty-one and thirty live who are members, mem-bers, and the approval of 200.000 other such men who are associated with them, are behind It. Since these are. presumably, the young men who will direct the destinies of American business in years to come, the plan has more than a slim chance of one day becoming a national na-tional Issue. The author of the Big Idea Is Thomas D. O'Bryan, chairman of the national body's war debts committee. com-mittee. O'Bryan was horn and reared In I.ovilia. lown. and attended attend-ed Iowa State university at Ames. I He came to Chicago with a "head ! for figures" to work In the foreign ; exchange department of a large brokerage house. To fit himself better bet-ter for his Job, he burned the lamps VonR and late every nlbt, rending Bp on the history and principles of orIgn exchange, and It was In hoe early morning hours when de- cent folk were long In bed that the O'Bryan Plan, as It Is now known, first began to see the light of day; if that isn't mixing up the metaphors meta-phors too hopelessly for anyone to follow. A Word About Plan's Author. Today, at twenty-eight, O'Bryan Is a man with a mission. Tall, large boned, darkly handsome, of serious demeanor and perpetual frown of thought, he has a paying job in La Salle street, but It is not hard to see that he lives, thinks and breathes the O'Bryan plan. He can spout figures and arguments to support its theories right through the lunch hour, if need be, never once thinking think-ing of the Inner man, to convince a heathen unbeliever. And about seven times out of ten, the said heathen unbeliever will find himself agreeing agree-ing whether through honest conviction con-viction or a credible desire to get about the business of acquiring lunch. It is not within the province of this recorder to Judge. I can only set down a brief synopsis of Mr. O'Bryan's theories and let the render decide for himself. First of all, he asks us to consider the nature of the debts and the manner In which they were incurred. in-curred. The debtor nations were at war and, because their Industries were busy manufacturing munitions and other goods of war, they found It necessary to Import goods In vast amounts which, for the large part, they normally produced at home. We lent them the money with which to buy these goods, and then they bought the goods from us. Our government, of course, borrowed bor-rowed the money from Its citizens: 3 billions of dollars In the First Liberty Lib-erty Loan act, 4 billions In the Second Sec-ond Liberty Loan act, and 3 billions more in the Third and Fourth Liberty Lib-erty Loan acts a total of 10 billions. bil-lions. Practically all of this was advanced to the Allies, in exchange for I. (). U.'s from each debtor. After Af-ter the war Uncle Sam supplied funds for relief to Finland, Lithuania, Lithu-ania, Latvia, Esthonla, Poland, "Austria, "Aus-tria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The aggregate principal amounted to $10,:i.'SS.05S,3.r2.20. The total debt, Including Interest, amounts to about $22,000,000,000. Every nation but Finland defaulted the payment due December . 15, when payments of nearly a billion dollars were due. Difficulties of Payment. The present agreements provide for the debts to be paid In gold or In dollar currency. This means that a debtor must ship gold to the United Slates or sell goods here In order to accumulate dollar currency. Present Pres-ent economic conditions make It difficult dif-ficult for debtor nations to pay In gold; nor, with more than one-half the world's supply already within our vaults, do we want more of It. Importing goods from the debtor nations na-tions would lower price levels and living standards In this country, for the type of goods which we would have to Import are largely those which we produce In sufficient quantities quan-tities at home; to protect our own Internal trade we have set up prohibitive pro-hibitive tariffs which preclude the sale of Imported goods. These conditions con-ditions make It virtually Impossible for our debtors to pay In dollar currency. cur-rency. If we cannot buy from them the (low of gold would end In a reservoir In this country, and that would not he desirable from a viewpoint view-point of International economy. They have the capacity to pay (according to Mr. O'Bryan) and "It Is possinle" they are willing to pay. The answer lies In discovering a means of payment satisfactory to both debtor and creditor. The O'Bryan plan advances the argument that there Is nothing which debtor nations produce that we can consume here; but there are services which we can consume Tl 1 KB !'. and which we do consume In a quantity which approac hes the proportions, in dollars and coots, of the annual payments which the debtor nations are required to pay us through the debt agreements. "Tourists spent outside the United States, according to the Department of Commerce, 500 millions during 1023, and a peak of 850 millions during dur-ing 1920," says Mr. O'Bryan. "These expenditures can be used to our benefit In dealing with the debts. The United States could enter en-ter into agreements with the debtors whereby they would furnish to our Treasury department certificates of Indebtedness, properly endorsed, for the full amount of the debts. The secretary of the treasury would be authorized to countersign them and distribute them to banks. Travelers Would Estimate Expenses "A tourist arranging for a passport pass-port would be required to estimate the amount to be spent in a debtor country and also Include steamship fare; that amount of certificates would be sold to the tourist to be used to pay fares, whether on a foreign for-eign or American line (American lines could use them In paying foreign for-eign bills), and to secure the currency cur-rency of a particular country by exchanging ex-changing them at the banks upon arrival there. "The debtor governments'O'Bryan continues "would agree to refund the certificates in specified amounts and In place of them Issue long term bonds of equal standing with other obligations of the government Incurred In-curred for any other purpose. "The United States treasury would be required to hold moneys raised by the sale of the certificates In a fund to retire the outstanding government gov-ernment bonds of this country. The result of the process would amount to the debts being liquidated In this country; and at the same time they would be transferred Into the form of a long term International obligation obliga-tion of the debtor as compared to an external long term obligation as they are now. The process would go on until the entire amount of the debts was liquidated; and the results obtained In this way would not require the transfer of gold and the attendant disturbing Influence It has over credit facilities In the debtor nations." The young author of this plan points out that additional benefits would accrue to the debtor nations, for their tourist and travel business would be stimulated without additional addi-tional sales promotion cost. Part of the Increased taxes of the debtor nation's population would he returned re-turned as profit upon this assumed Increase In business. Marketing Certificates. O'Bryan Is dabbling with several angles of the plan which would stimulate travel by Americans. For Instance, If the writer follows him clearly, he suggests that the part of the United States national debt that resulted from the war loans be kept In a separate account. A percentage of every annual direct federal lax would apply on the liquidation of the war dehts; the citizen or corporation paying the tax would be Issued travel certificates certifi-cates for an amount equal to the percentage of the total direct tax paid. In speaking of our travel expenditures ex-penditures la the debtor nations, O'Bryan perhaps unfortunately misuses mis-uses the word "tourist." Tourists actually make up less than half of the Americans who travel abroad, and if his plan would work at all, the certificates would he attractive to all classes of travel. In determining a representative working figure of expenditures, O'Bryan takes the mean travel expenditures ex-penditures and Immigrant remittances remit-tances In debtor nations for the years 11127. 1020. 10:11, which is an annual total of about one-third If a billion dollars for all the debtor nations combined. On this basis he estimates that the dehts or" nil nations na-tions except Belgium and England could he liquidated over a period of aivout 02 years. Wemern Newspaper UDlon. |