THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD.
By EVELYN WRENCH.
THE reports from the correspondents of the British Press in Washington concerning the progress made by the British and American Debt Funding Commissioners were hopeful till Tuesday. On Tuesday, however, the Commissioners failed to agree on the term of repayment and the rate of interest. The Americans apparently thought that a sixty years' term was too long and a rate of three per cent. too low. Still, the negotiations throughout have borne out the Spectator's forecast as to the good effect which the British Government's determination to discharge its obligations in full would have on American opinion. Mr. J. L. Balderston, a prominent American journalist who has just returned from Washington, writes thus on the subject in the Outlook :— "It would be difficult to exaggerate the impression which our behaviour over the debt has made on the American people. Until recently they were convinced, thanks to the blundering of Lord Balfour and other lesser Britons, that we were trying to wriggle out of our obligations. Now that they see we are not, there is an immediate and generous recognition of the fact that we alone of the belligerent Powers, although we happened to be on the winning side, arc paying a huge war indemnity."
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