The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-14
HOLLAND BURDENED
 WITH FOREIGN CREDIT
Business Men Are Now Carrying $200,OO0,G00 Worth of Short
 Time Treasury Bills

The Hague, Netherlands, September 10. Correspondence of the Associated Press) There is $200,O 600 worth of foreign credit paper now in the Netherlands, according to the minister of finance. Marie Willem Frederik Treub. In small country like this, such quantity has onlX been di- gested with difficulty and the absorption of further accounts Is becoming so diffi- cut as to threaten serious interference with the country's foreign trade and eco homie welfare
 The question constitutes a complicated problem for the government. Bankers re- fuse to go on piling up their stocks of this paper. not because they doubt its secured, but because they do not desire to tie up too much of the liquid re- sources. on which there Is likely to be a big call when the war is over.
 That means that the farmers and deal CTS cannot go on taking German and British treasury bills in payment for their goods, and apparently neither Ger many nor Britain want to pay in cash. But stoppage of the country's export trade would upset its entire economic machinery and result in big damage and loss.
 The government is attacking the prob lem in conjunction with it's plan for cen tralizing the entire exports to the coun- try in the hands of a semiofficial com pany the central export bureau. The bill to establish such body and invest 1t with the requisite powers, has passed the second chamber of Parliament
 The central export bureau would accept foreign treasury paper in payment for exportsg insofar as such exports are not balanced by supplies of coal iron and other commodities. On the other hand.
 it would issue bonds. preferably to the Dutch farmers and dealers who export their goods by it's mediation. Such ex- porters can then obtain bank loans on these bonds.- Hollands central banking. institution agrees to accept these secu- rites, and the government guarantees it against loss thereby to an amount of $S,000,0C0. The creation of special ex- port bank is also provided for. The Dutch exporter would thus get his payment in the form of bonds of the semiofficial bu- reau. instead of in the form of foreign treasury bills. and foreign credits and connected matters would be under the more direct control of the authorities.
 Minister of Finance Treub has strongly opposed the view of parliamentary crit ics who have expressed fears concerning the solvency of belligerent powers in case of a prolongation of the war. and consequently of the soundness of some of this foreign credit paper. He said belligerent countries already had been taking sounding in regard to an appeal to neutral money markets after the war. which was an extra reason for honoring their obligations in full,
 By far the largest part of the foreign credit paper held in Holland apparently is German. and Hollands financial claims on Germany it Is contended, threaten to fsa6 0 great as to mako the small Acae8ltas lar too dependent on It's debtor. 4M rror anost a hundred years no one thop9 of making thread other than from llnsn and silk. Cotton was not so rseen eA thought of Then Napoleon. w,ho had been devastating Europe. thnmghf lie would strike blow at the siia industry of Hamburg, and caused the ssoeks of silk to be burned. The thread Akers of Paisley thus found snpplIes qf raw material cut of and tn&Y had to look about to find a substi- 'auEns Cotton was tried. and was found t ! arewe the purpose so well that the s&ss os in entirely new induetrY was