Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-28
SNOWDEN PLANS MIDDLE
OUTLOOK ON WAR DEBTS
Views on Reputation Cause Worry
for Debtor and Creditor
Nations.

| reducing tT1e purchasing power ana
stimulating the exporting pace of the
Germans. Coal deliveries TO France on
account of reparations have materially
/ contributed to the ruin of the British
coal trade.
! That is why many, like Snowden.
have never given up the idea that
there is only one settlement possible
an sll-sround cancellation and the
concomitant wiping out of practically
all German payments, which will in
creasingly be made in goods that will
replace British exports.
Therefore. while the Snowden speech
was primarily bit of rather cheap do
mestic politics. it was also a fairly
clear forecast of some definite Labor
effort to upset all the debt and repara-
lions settlements. If it gets into power.
Snowden wants to abolish German pay
ments, not because he particularly loves
the Germans but because he sees clear
ly that reparations payments mean the
expansion Of German exports at the
expense of British.
Wants Others to Pay.
But being politician, Snowden
wants to accomplish this desirable re-
suit at somebody else's expense. He
wants to make the French pay more
and to compel us to take less. He
wants to exploit the British resentment
Of the American policy of collecting war
debts. He wants to arouse British re-
sentiment against France, which is
prosperous, as Britain is not, by arguing
that France is paying too little. He
wants TO use the same argument against
Italy, thus insuring the applause of all
Labor members, who hate Mussolini on
general principles.
This is fairly dangerous program
It envisageS quarreling with all of the
nations which were considered allies of
Britain during the war except Russia.
And It is Soviet Russia which has alone
gone the limit in cancelling all the
debts which it owes its friends of the
war. But Snowden can't attack the
great repudiator, because his party con-
tains many Russian sympsthizers.
In addition, Snowden is indignant
because the French have, by virtual
reputation. wiped out three quarters
Of the national debt What this amounts
to, however, is the demand that the
British, who bought French securities,
obviously, for reasons of their own.
should be paid according to the old
gold franc rate instead of on the basis
of the present franc. On this basis
the British have a case against every
European country whose currency has
fallen during or since the war. His
idea seems to be that If a Briton buys
the securities of any country. and the
currency of this country loses value. the
Briton must be reimbursed. 1t Is as
reasonable as to insist that when 1t
rains or SHOWS in France or Italy, the
rls1 49, hot
Briton does not suffer.
After more than 10 years of de-
bate the question of war debts has come
down to the simple question of whether
Germany or the United States shall
bear the costs of liquidating the whole
network of loans and borrowings which
took place between the allies. II Ger
many bears 1t, she must. on the one
hand. enormously expand her exports
and become greater and greater fac
tor in world trade. And. on the other
hand. the German people are certain
as the years pass TO resent this tribute,
the price of military defeat, more and
more violently.
Might Help Ban War.
Thus Germany is likely economically
to become more potent and politically
less conciliatory. Both these almost in
evitable consequences are OF obvious
menace for the British. Together they
may mean a long period of deadly COM
petition followed by a new and later
time of European unrest and even Of
conflict. Both dangers might be largely
abolished If reparations we're eliminated.
But such elimination depends upon
America Having enabled the Allies to
win the last war. we could, II we can
celled the debts, do much to spare
them from the possible danger 81
new conflict
Nevertheless the old argument of the
European allies against debt payments
has gone. Germany is paying the allied
debts to us and under any system oil
revised reparstions she will continue to
do this for a long time to come. II any
people is under bondage to the Amer1-
can, it is not the British or the French,
it is the German.
There Is one phase of this whole debt
question which none Of us on this side
of the Atlantic is likely to forget. II
the British at the Coolidge conference
had been prepared to consent to the
limitation Of naval tonnage proposed by
our representatives, We should have been
spared an expense which may easily
cover several years of British payment.
And conversely. If we had agreed to
cancel the British debt in 1923 no pres
sure of financial stringency would have
made even an illusory parity popular
IN Britain Nor can We forget that
the Labor government. in which Snow
den was a dominating figure, assented
to the first considerable postwar naval
expansion which wrecked the spirit
of the Washington conference agree
ment and opened the way TO the later
unhappy dispute
fCopyrizht, 1927