News of the Week R UMOURS of the imminent demise of
the World Economic Conference have been foolishly pre- mature. But the difficulty about stabilization, in view of America's refusal to stabilize, is serious, in spite of American assurances that if only the world as a whole would imitate the United States the problems before the Conference would be solved. The most serious immediate threat to the life of the Conference came from France, but M. Bonnet, while maintaining his unrelenting insis- tence upon monetary stabilization as the pre-condition of progress declared his confidence in ultimate success. It is true that. nothing great is likely to come from the Conference unless and until the stabilization issue is settled, but meanwhile the delegates have been working hard at other problems. Chief among them has been that of indebtedness. A demand by Hungary, backed up by other debtor countries, for the creation of machinery for the adjustment of international debts by agreement between debtors and creditors, has drawn forth a number of most interesting speeches, but got only a tepid welcome from Mr. Chamberlain, who wants no more than the creation elsewhere of bodies analogous to our Council of Foreign Bondholders.
