44.-NCE more the Government is immersed in negoti ations for
receiving payment of a foreign debt. Such transactions are always difficult and always unpleasant.
Money brings honour, friends, conquest and realms "— but it may also lose them, especially the friends. It is obvious that with a deficit on the Budget staring us in the face we cannot afford the luxury of entirely remitting debts, and yet the last thing we want to do is to be exacting Or to go beyond, the point indicated by justice—justice to the British people as well as to the debtor. There was a time shortly after the War when Great Britain would- gladlY- liaN;e7ehteTed into-anarraniement with all the Allied -and' ASioeiated nations for ti:geneialcareellation-of: debts on the ground that in the War we had all thrown our various contributions into the pool and that there was some- thing almost, indecent in balancing a greater expenditure in money against a greater expenditure in lives, and so on.
