Evening star., 1920-02-21
FINANCIAL SITUATION ABROAD
DECLARED PARAMOUNT ISSUE
Congress Looked To by Leading Financiers
to Deal Promptly With Economic Prob
lems-F. A. Vanderlip' Views.

|
| interest
| Certainly we ought not to go OF
with further government loans. Ban k:
| are great creditors. owing on demand
| and these are time loans that are
| wanted-only time loans will avail il
this situation. 1t is a matter for ou'
| investors. but you may readily say
our investors want no such invest
ments. and they have shown they
| want no such investments with re
| cent values of foreign securities. sc
we must think of something othei
| than that.
| MY conception of what is needed
! and what might I've done is something
along this line: l would not loan 8
penny to rehabiiitate the treasures
7 of these countries. That task IS toe
great. | would loan only food ahc
raw material-only those things wficf
| are vitally needed in order that IN
dustry NAV be restarted. in order
| that the people there may go II
| work.
Food and Raw Material.
"It would be possible l believe. for
| the various nations that have sur
pluses of food and raw material tha'
they could export to JOIN IN an lnter
national loan that should be made IN
terms not of money. but OF 1ood ano
! of these necessary raw materials
| be rationed to the borrowers IN ac-
cordance with their needs.
Such a plan must be comprehen-
sive or it is unsafe and almost use
i less If you leave any great area ol
Europe unaided, unable to aid itself
hungry, cold and without the means
| of labor, you leave danger spot 1T
Europe--a danger spot That VIII
spread danger.
I'VE are inclined to say 1T is hard
hut in time they will work 1T out.
! Time is not working it out; it is max
ing it worse. Conditions are much
worse this spring than they were last
wear. so bad that if you'd visualiDf
Vienna. Warsaw and Armenia you
could not rest easy under that Wis
ion There is general starvation that
is bound to increase in appalling de-
gree.
Time Lost in Loan Discussion.
"Our government has been asked to
appropriate S150,O00,O00 for the i'm
mediate alleviation of that situation
We have let precious days go by
while that recommended appropria-
tion was being discussed and being
reduced. The present idea is to make
lit $50 900. 900 when $150.000. 600 was
asked in the first place because the
$500. 100000 actually needed was -
in half as being too large sum like
ly to be obtained.
1--WE recognize our interdependence
here in America. and that the great
est prosperity could only come by the
greatest production of all of us in
America, but when it comes to for
eign trade we seem to think differ
emily: that we can grow up and pros
per because other people were not
prosperous, were not producing.
European Calamity Felt Here.
at is inst as true, if Europe falls
in production to point where she
can scarcely support life, or she does
not support all the present life. that
that calamity will be directly felt
economically here
Time is travelling very fast and
time is working against the ultimate
favorable solution of the situation,
These hungry nations. with still some
months to go until the next harvest,
some of them with utterly exhausted
sacks of food. all of them on half ra-
tions or less of fuel, are the kind of
ground in which revolution is sowed,
in which discomfort, in which suspi-
cion of the present order is bred.
There is suspicion of the present or
der of things and We have it among
ourselves.
U. s. Should he Alert.
1--WE cannot sit smusly by. inactive.
These are great times. and they may
have among them great changes; they
may have in them great changes for
good. believe that is possible if
we do our part and accept our op-
portunities."
The foregoing are the words not of
a theorist, nor doctrinaire, but of
a man who for twenty years has been
a foremost figure in the constructive
business and financial life of this
country and for years the head of
the largest financial institution in
the land,