FINANCIAL NOTES
INTERNATIONAL DEBT.
It is only natural that the general public should have been impressed*by the picturesque manner in which Mr. Winston Churchill dealt last week in the House of Commons with the general subject of International Debts. That this country should be paying £100,000 a day to the United States for three generations, and that the United States should be receiving from Europe amounts approximately equal to the whole total of Reparations which Germany is paying, are points, of course, which appeal to the imagination, and it is well that the imagination should sometimes be stirred, though I confess that I would have liked the Chancellor to go a little farther and remind the community that these payments really take the form of an exchange of goods and services. In other words, if we are honourably to meet our engagements; the case for enlarged and cheapened output becomes still stronger, and let it not be forgotten that by honourably fulfilling our engagements along these lines we shall reap the reward 0f' extended trade and increased employment. In other words, our very indebtedness should serve as a spur to increased effort. This, however, of course, does not mean that we should not also see to it that we are not left alone in the matter and that our Allies, including France, should make due recognition of their obligations to Great Britain.
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