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Show The War Debt Stir Probably the most discussed problem among the leading nations of the world at the present time is that of the war debts due the United States. A request that payments pay-ments due December 15th be postponed post-poned was refused by the American Ameri-can Government. Great Britain is harder hit by the debt problem than any other European nation and has paid nearly three-fouiths of all pay ments which this country has received, re-ceived, hut present reports indicate indi-cate that the British, with characteristic char-acteristic honesty, are preparing to make the payments as . agreed originally. Three countries owe the greater part of the debt. It might be interesting in-teresting to review certain salient "cures. The English borrowed a little more than four blUion dollars, dol-lars, of which something more than five hundred million was leaned to her after the Armistice had been signed. Fiance borrowed nearly three and one-half billion dollars, of which a billion and a half was loaned alfer the fighting had stopped. Italy borrowed something more than a billion and a half dollars and more than six hundred hun-dred million dollars was loaned to Italy after the fighting had been discontinued. All Ibcpp loans were made at five per cent interest but in previous pre-vious diplomatic negotiations -he interest to be charged these ia-tiens ia-tiens was scaled down, the British o three and thiee-tenths per .out, the French to cue and six-tentns per cent and Italy's to four-tenths -f one per cent. So, in the previous pre-vious debt settlements Great Britain Bri-tain fared the wi rst, as France pays less than half as much of an interest rate, and Italy pays ene- fourth o.f what France pays. The E; tif ii . have other facts which si 1 uld be considered. D ir-ing ir-ing the We rid War Great Britain, loaned to her allies more mony than she borrowed from America. In other words, from a financial standpoint the British borrowed so they could help their allies. Long ago the British Government announced that it would cancel ill debts due its allies if theUnit-ed theUnit-ed States cancelled the smaller sum due them by Great Britain, or, if America made no such cancellation, can-cellation, the British declared they would only seek to collect from Ghelr debtors an amount sufficient to repay the loans made Britain by America. The probability is that Great Britain will pay the debt in full if the United States insists. The British wiU not repudiate their obligations, ob-ligations, but certain other com-pjlications com-pjlications might follow, as outlined out-lined by a British member of Parliament, Par-liament, L. S. Amery. "Default" is said, "is a double-edged weapon, wea-pon, however. We can only pay by minimizing our purchases from the United States. We shall have to have recourse to denouncing our commercial treaties, ,if necessary, neces-sary, and to imposing such tariffs as will halt our buying anything that can be found within our Dwn empire." The French attitude is apt to be somewhat digerent from that of Great Britain, but they wiil probably take the lead for their official reaction from the British. France borrowed about three-sev-snths of her money after the fighting was over to hnv Ammran supplies, machinery, etc., in France and therefore, cannot justly claim that a large part of her debt was for carrying on war. The interest rate on the French debt1 has already been reduced to less than half what British pays and she has been a favored debtor. France continues to maintain a very large army, exceeding that of any other country, is building a moderate navy and is financially underwriting the milifiary budget for various Eastern-European allies. al-lies. Less than a year ago the French took the lead in calling upon America for gold, in a concerted con-certed drive to break down the American dollar. Nov, she wr.nts us to cancel the debt. One French deputy says that the government has been too timid in dealing with the question, meaning that tha French should openly refuse to acknowledge her debt. To the American taxpayer, cancellation can-cellation means that he must pay instead of the European countries. Already he is paying the difference differ-ence in interest between the rates on the various war bond issues and that being charged the owing nations. Senator Johnson, Republican Repub-lican of California, says: "There is just one thing to the whole debt problem. That is whether the European Eur-opean nations shall pay our government gov-ernment what they owe us or shaU the American taxpayers pay what the European nations -owe us.- It is utterly nonsense to say that France and Italy can't pay. It might strain : Great Britain some but that is no reason why we should put this burden on the back of the taxpayers." |