17 NOVEMBER 1928, Page 1

Mr. Coolidge's figures of America's financial sacrifice in the War

also puzzle us. He said that America had spent £20,000,000,000. No doubt such a sum is accurate in some sense or Mr. Coolidge would not have quoted it, but we are left wondering whether this sacrifice is really coMparable with the sacrifice of Europe. A large part of the expenditure in America seems to have been highly. productive if we may judge from the wealth of the connfiyi where-as European -expenditure was expenditure of a very Painful Pig It disappeared into thin air and left not awrack or -profit behind. We sincerely. agrep, however, with Mr. Coolidge's declaration of the mightiness of the effort which America made to win the War. Some European countries are much too ready to minimize that effort when they are bewailing, their own losses, and particularly when they are trying to manoeuvre America to the stage of remitting the debts which are unques- tionably owed.