Evening star., 1925-09-20
Economic.

With the arrival of the French debt
commission and the opening of nego-
tiations for settlement of its debt less
than a week away. the Treasury has
been furnished the results of an in
vestigation by the Institute of Eco
nomics. an unofficial orga anization here.
which declares that France cannot
pay anything in the near future on
her debt except by methods which
would intensity her general financial
difficulties.
Meanwhile the officials of the Ameri-
can Debt Funding Commission, who
will deal with the debt question, in
sist that terms TO France will be gov
erned entirely by the French ability
TO pay, and will not be based upon
agreements reached with Great
Britain or with Belgium.
Finance Minister Caillaux, who is
on his way to this country at the
head Of the French debt mission, out
lined his plans before the French
cabinet before leaving Paris last week
and was given full power to conduct
the negotiations.
The Postoffice Department last week
opened bids for contracts for carry
ing the mail on eight new air routes
thus registering another step in this
Department. accomplishments as a
pioneer in development of the air
plane as an agency for commercial
transport. The new air lines, which
are branches of those already in ope-
| ration, will directly connect through
the air. 29 important cities, in
addition to the 16 which are al
ready on the main air routes. Other
cities will be benefited by speedier
mail facilities resulting from the air
nj nd t,-ot IN,
Though each individual motorist
will probably deny it applies to him.
a survey conducted by New York en-
gineers of transportation in Washing
ton reveals the fact that it costs about
IL cents mile to run the average"
automobile, and this cost is compared
with the cost of 2.44 cents a mile to
ride street car, &c cents a mile to
ride bus and 23.90 cents a mile to
| ride in taxicabs. The cost OF main
tanning an automobile in the District
counting depreciation, taxes and other
expenses, comes to about $500 a year
Supporting their arguments that a
| lower tax rate brings proportion
ately larger returns, Treasury off,
| c1alS last week revealed that III
spite of the reduced rates of tax
| fiscal year of 1925 were only S2l. :
O3S,9S9 less than collections made at
higher rates during the preceding II
months.
A feature of the sessions of the
League of Nations council in Geneva
| last week was the introduction of a
resolution by Louis Loucheur, speak
ing for France, favoring a world
economic conference. The proposal
was based on the idea that as the
league desires world peace, economic
| peace must first be secured, and that
technical bureaus should work to this
end by preparing a conference to
study the economic differences
standing in the way of a restoration
of general property and the best
method of surmounting those diff
culties and avoiding disputes"
Art.
Two Rembrandt portraits valued at
| more than $4,000 will come into
| the possession of some American
museum as the result of court de-
cision last week. Joseph Il. Widener.
Philadelphia sportsman and financier.
purchased the portraits in 1921 from
Prince Felix Youssoupoff, who had
fed from Russia after. it is pre-
| sumed, he had slain the monk, Ras-
putin: Not long ago the prince came
to America and declared he gave the
| picture to Widener only as security
| for loan. Widener argued other
! wise, the case got into court, and
Widener won last week. The Phila-
delphian intends to bequeath the
| pictures to some museum in memory
of his father.