Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-01
BY FRANK H. sIMONDs.


i portance, namely the matter OF
the European debts to the United
States and the crisis in France grow
ing out of the financial breakdown
as that crisis may affect Europe
generally.
AS to the European debts to our
selves, it must be becoming fairly
clear after the events Of recent days,
eliminating in the debate in the
House of Commons, that Europe does
not mean to pay the debts because 1t
does not believe that they are just or
have any moral foundation. What
we are actually seeing is the more or
less sporadic manifestations of q
movement which is bound In the
nature of things to develop and ex-
tend until it unites the whole con-
tinent. /.
One of the great mistakes in the
whole American view of the situation
has been to imagine that II would be
possible to separate the debt ques-
ton from the general European post
war problems or to deal with the
various debtor nations separately;
that is, to prevent the ultimate draw
ing together of all these debtor ma
tions in a common resentment or the
American course and In common
purpose to abolish all the separate
contracts made with our government
by some general movement.
Effect Upon Germany.
In the same fashion, not a few of
our politicians with German con-
stituents have imagined that they
would serve their supporters best by
insisting upon severe terms to France.
What they failed to perceive was that
the net effect of severity on France
was merely to pass On to Germany
the necessity Of continued large pay
ments, because the French stood and
were bound to stand always on the
principle that they would only pay
as they were paid. And at the end
of the paying line stood Germany,
her territory occupied 'oy allied
troops, her course prescribed by the
Dawes plan. Thus in the last analysis
Germany was bound to be driven to
make a common cause with the rest
of Europe.
The discussion of the justice of our
policy can hardly have any impor-
lance now because it is thoroughly
established that Europe will never
recognize that justice. Much less is
there any use in maintaining that we
have been generous at a moment
when Uncle Sam has become Uncle
Shylock" for a whole continent. The
moment has arrived when we must
face with absolute clarity the essential
fact that Europe believes we are In
sisting upon payments which are not
fair and pursuing toward continent
which is stricken the most selfish and
grasping policy in human history.
Now the end of all the present dis
pute is perfectly patent. We are 60
ing to lose the money we lent to Eu-
rope during the war save for some
relatively small sums which may be
paid during a short time and solely
because such payments are a detail
in getting more money from US in the
shape of commercial loans and cred
It's. And these incidental payments
will have the same result as pouring
kerosene upon a fire.
Seen as PerilOus Course.
We have. quite unconsciously, en-
barked upon one of the most danger
Gus and provocative courses which
any country has ever adopted. We
are undertaking to collect from at
least four great countries and
number Of smaller nations vast sums
of money which these countries do
not feel that they owe and do feel
represent nothing more or less than
tribute. However unfair the Euro
pean estimate of the situation may be,
we have always to remember that the
estimate is now pretty generally ac-
cepted by three or four hundred mil
lions of people.
At the moment we can affect very
lofty disregard for this European
state of mind. At the moment we
are strong and Europe is weak, we
are rich and Europe Is poor, we are
solvent and in the larger sense Eu-
rope is bankrupt. 1t may be that,
as the Washington politicians have
preached, we can disregard Europe
and that wise policy would demand
that we avoid every conceivable Eu-
ropean ENHANCEMENT.
But 1t remains to be seen how far
the debts may prove to be the strong
err form of entanglement. / wish
/ might make clear also another cir
cumstance. Washington has steadily
maintained that the resentment dis
coyerable In Europe was transient
and that prosperity would come quick
ly and then the debt payments would
become so insignificant that they
would cease to be an issue. BY con-
trast, for three years at least the
fever of European resentment has
been growing and 1t Is very far from
having reached the possible maximum
yet, while it is clear that there has
been no such recovery of prosperity
as was cheerfully predicted in the
American Capital.
Believes Resentment Is Fixed.
Cancellation of the debts en- bloc
now would not change the European
estimate of our spirit. Such an act
would merely be interpreted as an
eleventh-hour discovery that we could
not collect and that the attempt to
collect threatened to be improbable.
We are going to be Uncle Shylock in
Europe now until the present genera
ton has disappeared. The mere on.
ciaI declaration that we have been
generous arouses a storm of passion
ate resentment from Moscow to Lon
don and q flood of contemptuous re-
elimination.
Nevertheless, IL our Government
desires to avoid a full generation of
dangerous European hostility, sooner
or later taking the form of actual
combination against us, 1t must in
the end face the necessity for can
collation.. 1t is an even thing whether
reputation comes before cancella-
ton or we are presently faced with
the necessity of choosing between an
attempt to collect by force and pas
sive acquiescence in general European
reputation.
We have arrived now in precisely
the position In which the French
found themselves three years and
more ago. when the people had been
fed to the limit on the notion that
Germany would pay for the costs of
the war and the reconstruction and
Germany had begun to show signs Of
an unwillingness to pay anything.
Because the French politicians were
afraid of their own people they oc-
cupied the Ruhr, but they, got no
money and had In the end 70 accept.