Evening star., 1925-06-19
DEBT DISCUSSION
At BRUSSELS SEEN
"Economic Restoration" Will
Feature Chamber of Com
i merce Meeting.

Prominently placed on the program
of next weeks International Chamber
of Commerce meeting at Brussels is
the subject of Economic Restora
ton" Under the title Of that general
question the principal discussions OF
the chamber will range, for the ques
ton concerns chiefly the burning issue
OF interallied debts. Interallied debts
as far as Europe is interested in them
mean principally the S12,l5l, ,23S. .393
which European nations owe to the
United States Treasury.
II is an open secret that many EIu
ropean financial and economic lead
ers hope that the Brussels meeting
will evolve a debt funding plan that
VIII interest the United States. Their
expectations on this score are whet.
TED by the fact that out of the Rome
meeting of the international chamber
IN 1923 the idea of solving the repara.
tons problem on a practical CONNER
clal basis emerged. Chamber leaders
who include eminent American bust.
ness men, will not be surprised if
history repeats itself and if the Brus-
sells meeting evolves another Dawes
Commission" to unravel the tangled
problem of world Indebtedness.
Committee at Work.
For the past year special com.
mittee of the International Chamber of
commerce has been at grips with
the question of economic restora
ton" The committee is composed of
20 members. presided over by Fred
|. Kent, vice president of the Bankers
Trust Co. of New York It's studies
have been pursued from the stand
point of the effect upon business of the
nnCpttIn6 nTnh1pnc Of
ton. At Rome. in 1928. the interna-
tional chamber voted to have the sub.
Ject investigated on the theory that
governments would never successfully
tackle 1t without recourse to the ex-
perlence of business men of different
countries
American authorities like Owen d.
Young, reputed author-in-c of the
Dawes plan: Willis H. Booth. presi.
dent of the International Chamber of
commerce, and A. G. Bedford, chair
man of the board of the Standard Oil
60. OF New Jersey and chairman of
the American section of the inter.
national chamber. are on record as
feeling strongly that interallied debts
some day must be considered on
Dawes plan lines. For that reason
these men have often called the plan
an experiment" The experiment
relates to the practicability of trans.
ferring large amounts of money from
one country to another. 1t needs TO
be shown. in their opinion whether
these transfers can be made without
endangering either the currency OF
the debtor country or the industry
and trade of the creditor country. In
order to pay, will the debtor country
be obliged to submit to a fatal inf1a
tion? In order to receive payment
Will the creditor country have to
suffer an inundation of foreign
products, which might submerge its
national industries and trade?
Withdrew Proposed Plan.
The American delegation at Brus-
sells, which is an extensive and in
duential one, including not only ma
tional business leaders. but several
Government officials. is certain to
refrain from discussion which would
In any way embarrass the Coolidge
administration pending efforts to
fund our European debts. But the
latter are bound to bulk conspicuously
In the deliberation on economic
restoration"
The Kent committee. this writer
learns in a well informed quarter, was
at one time minded to make certain
recommendations about the debts
which would not have facilitated the
United States negotiations in Paris
Rome. Brussels and other capitals. On
the eve of the departure of the Ameri-
can delegation for the international
chamber meeting it Is understood that
the Kent committee was dissuaded
from committing itself to any pro-
gram which would have invited Off
cial disapproval in Washington.
The economic restoration" commit
tee has been considering to what ex-
tent transfers of debtor payments can
be absorbed in normal commercial in
tercourse between countries. 1t has
also investigating whether sums which
exceeded the normal capacity of alb
sorption in creditor countries can be
employed in new developments. En-
terprises like railways, water power or
other public utilities might perhaps, it
is held, be carried out in creditor
countries or in non-creditor countries
at the expense of a debtor country.
The Brussels meeting with thrash out
all these questions.
DIR. Julius Klein of the Department
of Commerce, Judge Edwin B. Parker,
umpire of the Germa American n