* * * • Westminster and Washington Sensitiveness in America
regarding the coining debt negotiations is such that Mr. MacDonald's comparatively matter-of-fact statement in the House of Commons on Monday was hailed with visible relief at Washington.
All the Prime Minister, in fact, said was that the coming discussions would embrace not only debts, but the whole field covered by the agenda for the World Economic Conference. That might always have been taken for granted, but America apparently wants specific assurances on the point. The reason no doubt is that deeper causes of anxiety exist than have been fully appreciated here. That was shown clearly enough by the action the Governor of the very considerable State of Michigan took on Tuesday, in declaring an- eight-day moratorium through- out the State as result of a crisis in the affairs of the Union Guardian Trust Company of Detroit. The credit of hundreds of banks has been shaken by the decision to publish particulars of the advances made to them by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the disclosure that a particular bank has received large advances being taken, of course, as an implication that its situation was difficult. There is something much nearer to panic about the financial situation in America than we have realized over here, and the failure of a few more banks of import- ance might have catastrophic results.
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