INTERNATIONAL DEBTS.
As readers of the Spectator are doubtless well aware, the enormous sum expressed in German Reparation pay- (Con/blued on page 990.)
Finance—Public and Private
(Continued from page 988.) ments is counterbalanced, so far as the recipients of the amount are concerned, by their -having to make similar payments on War Debts to the United States. In other words, German Reparation payments, with some possible deductions, really make their way to the Government of the United States of America. At the same time, the American Government has steadily refused to recognize that aspect of the matter, maintaining that her claims upon the Allies are quite independent of anything con- nected with German Reparation remittances, her object in assuming that attitude obviously being to avoid any kind of indirect responsibility for failure on the • part of Germany to fulfil her Reparation obligations. On the other hand, the Allies naturally regard with dismay the prospect of any default on the part of Germany,. unless there were to be a corresponding relaxation of claims on the part of the American Government. Hence the revival of talk as to the possibility of an all round can- cellation of indebtedness. This of course, is what Great Britain was prepared to do almost from the outset, as she offered to relinquish all her claims upon the Allies if America would adopt a similar course. It was only when America rejected the idea in toto that we then proceeded to fund our own obligations to the United States.
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