The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1925-08-28
NEWS REVIEW OF
CURRENT EVENTS
Settlement of Belgian Debt
Shows Leniency on Part
of the United States.
BY EDWARD W. PIcKARD

provided congress is satisfied
and there is no reason to believe
it will not be-the funding of Bel
gums debt to the United States has
been arranged. The agreement was
signed by the members Of the two COM
missions last week at dinner given
at the Belgian embassy by Ambassa-
dor Baron de Cartier de Marchienne.
1t is in accord with the advice given
by President Coolidge when Secretary
Mellon and Senator Smoot conferred
with him, and the Brussels govern
ment authorized its representatives to
accept it.
Belgium is highly pleased with the
arrangement, and should be. In the
first place, distinction is made be-
tween the obligations incurred during
the war and the sums borrowed after
the armistice for purposes of relief
work and reconstruction. The princi
pal is all to be paid in period of 60
years, but on the war debt Of SILL
10000 Belgium is not required to pay
any interest, either accrued or in the
future. The interest rate on the post
war debt is to be 31s per cent after
the first ten years. During the first
decade arbitrary amounts have been
fixed on the interest payments, gradu-
ated on an easy scale.
On the war debt account the first
payment Of capital, which will be due
TrIrn will he nvnlv
increasing gradually until it reaches
$2.9O0,000 in 1882, the same amount to
be paid each succeeding year until
1887. Then a final payment Of $780,
600 will be made.
For the first year on the post war
debt the principal and interest pay
ment will be $2,S4OO0O,' increasing
somewhat each year to the eleventh
year, when it will be $9,772,O00. The
annual payment each year thereafter
for 81 years, or until 1887, will be APP
proximately this amount--a little I'M
der 100000 a year.
The Belgian debt has hitherto been
regarded as totaling about $4S0,O00,-
600, including accrued interest at
rate of Az per cent. The settlement,
however, fixes the actual amount at
$417,7S0000, as of June is, 1925.
The American commission refused
to accept Belgium's claim that the war
debt should be shifted in any way to
Germany, but explained the easy
terms granted by saying that while
no legal obligation rests upon the
United States in the matter, there does
continue weighty moral obligation as
a result of assurances given which en-
tirely differentiates this sum from all
other debts due the United States
from foreign countries" The allusion,
Of course, is to President Wilson's as
surance that the German government
would be substituted for Belgium as
the debtor for the pre-armistice debts.
ORANGE naturally was immensely
= interested in the Belgian debt set
Element and regarded it as a happy
augury and as proof that America was
ready to make generous concessions in
the matter of the French obligations.
Finance Minister Caillaux, declaring:
1.-THE future of European civilization
depends on an immediate solution of
the war debts" announced that the
French mission headed by Senator
Berenger would come to Washington in
September and that he would follow
it and hoped a funding agreement
might be reached early in October.
Meanwhile he went on Saturday to
London for another conference with
the English, expecting to bring about
a rapid agreement regarding Frances
obligations to Great Britain.
Italy. too, was cheered by the Bel
gian settlement, hoping for similar and
perhaps better terms when Ambassa-
dor de MARITIME returns to Washing
ton and the pareys are resumed. The
newspapers in Rome are presenting
figures to show that Italy is receiving
$50 per capita on her separations ac-
count and the national wealth is only
1886 per capita, while Belgium re-
ceives from Germany 1924 per capita