The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-09-02
BILLIONS FOR
ARMS; NOTHING
FOR WAR DEBT
Europe Piles Up Weapons,
but Pleads Poverty to
Creditor u. S.
RUIN PLEA is RIDDLED
Key to World Recovery Is
Twisted in Lock by
Mars DeVoteeS.
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Scripps-HOward Foreign Editor

Great Britain, France and the
other debtor nations of Europe in
sist they can not pay the United
States the $25O0oO,0O0 annual in
stallments now due on war debts. To
do so, they claim, would ruin them.
"Of course" declares Eliot Wads-
worth, former assistant secretary of
the treasury and former secretary
Of the United States World war for
eign debt funding commission, "the
war debts are factor in the pres
ent distresSful situation, but rela-
lively they are not a large item in
the total of world transactions.
The burden of excess ornaments,
to mention just one other item, is
making the backs of European tax
payers creak far more than war
debt annuities.
France should pay the United
States about $60,000,000 this year.
She has not done so, because of the
moratorium. She has spent, how
ever, $455 100000 on her armament,
or more than seven times the
amount due Uncle Sam.
Lavish Money on Arms
Great Britain should pay the
United States this year about $780,
100000, but, like France, has not
done so. She nevertheless has spent
$685. 100000 on armament, or more
than three times as much.
Italy should have paid the United
States nearly $15,000000. She ex-
pended $260,000,000 on armament, or
more than seventeen times as much.
The same thing is true of the
other debtor nations. They COM
plain they find it easy to spend
several times as much on danger
GUS excess of weapons. At least they
are not complaining.
The 1912 war debt inStallmentS
due the United States, but still I'M
paid, totaled $247 100000. The same
countries raised and spent on arma-
ments approximately $2,250,OOO, 900,
or nine times as much.
Small Part of Budget
The sum of $247, OOO,O 900 is only
one-half of l per cent of the ma
tional incomes of the debtor ma
tions. 1t is less than 3 per cent of
their annual budgets. Yet arma-
ments account for 1873 per cent of
the British budget, % per cent of
the French, Is per cent of The
and so on.
From the viewpoint of economics,
the annual debt installments have
amounted to but little more than
l per cent of the total volume of
foreign trade of the countries in
volved.
Patiently, therefore. the costly
ornaments race, not the war debt,
is the major evil playing havoc with
Europe. This burden has increased
AZ per cent in Britain since 1913:
in France, 80 per cent; in Italy, A
per cent; in Japan, 142 per cent,
and so on down the line.
Billions for War
1.-THE world expenditure on all
arms" President Hoover declared,
now is nearly $5,OO0,OOO, 600 yearly,
an increase of about 70 per cent over
that previous to the great war.
This vast armament continues
not only a burden upon the
economic recuperation of the world.
but, of even more consequence, the
threats and fears which
arise from it are a serious con-
tribution to all forms of instability
whether social, political, or
Armed to the teeth, Europe today
stands where she stood in 1914. The
tension, however. is even greater.
There are more danger spots" The
nations are more heavily armed.
There is chip on every shoulder.
And. made quarrelsome by idle
ness and empty bellies, the popula-
tons are more bitterly nationalistic
than they were eighteen years ago.