. But we have the satisfaction of knowing in advance
that M. Caillaux relates the state of credit which his country hopes to oajoy to her ability to meet external debts. It has beetk said that when the French financial experts visited London recently they were asked to pay about £20,000,000 a year. • They replied by offering some- thing less than £6,000,000 a year. The British Govern- ment would not and could not consider such a sum, and the experts returned home no doubt to inform the French Government that something better must be proposed. Not long ago. Lord Bradbury informed the Daily News that in his opinion ninety per cent. of the War damage in France had already been made good and that, partly owing to the acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine, the wealth of France was now- probably greater thin before the 1Var. Her capacity to pay foreign debts out of her own resources was in his opinion not less than two-thirds of that of Germany. Assuming that the total sum owed to us by France (1623,000,000) would be reduced to £880,000,000, and that the first payments would be small, Lord Brad- bury expressed the opinion that this obligation could be met by France even if German reparations broke down altogether. Meanwhile Belgium has arranged the terms on which she will pay her debt to America. Her pre- Armistice debt will be paid without interest and her post-Armistice debt on the terms accepted by us for our own debt to America. The particular concession to lielgium is bare justice, as she would not have signed the Treaty of Versailles had not President Wilson pro- mised her that Germany should be made responsible for her debt.
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