Evening star., 1932-11-20
EUROPE'S VIEWS VARY
ON WAR DEBTS ISSUE
Hoover-Roosevelt Conference Tuesday
Will Stand Out Against Confusing
International Background.

/ under the give and take rule Of diplo-
in mind.
What the United States is supposed
to be asking is as follows:
l. War debt payments as usual on
December IS, followed by a series OF
separate negotiations, wherein war debts
will be reconsidered on the basis of
capacity to paw and possibly also trade
concessions destined to improve business.
q Sterilization of deprecated and
| fiuctuating currencieS, especially the
British pound.
8. Measures tending to relax the po-
litical and economic tension in Europe
in such a way as to unfreeze American
private credits now blocked in Germany.
| 4. A general reduction IN armaments,
particularly naval ornaments, in such
way as to permit Government econ
omies all around and give the United
| States real instead of paper parity with
out the necessity of new ship construc-
| tion.
5. European support for the Ameri-
can viewpoint in the Far Eastern i'm
broglio especially a general agreement
| not to recognize Manchukuo.
| On war debts, Great Britain, France
and Italy are asking an extension OF
| the moratorium and then new negotia-
/ tions with view probably to a greatly
reduced lump sum settlement.
Germany interested.
Germany, though not officially con-
cerned, Is interested because the Lau-
same agreements make a reparations
settlement depend on an eventual new
debt settlement and because of the ef-
fects of possible debt squabble on the
| international political lineup.
| Russia is interested because 1t hopes
| to get American recognition and knows
that the question Of the Russian debt
will then be inevitably reopened and
will be handled by the United States
presumably on the same principles
which are applied to the other war
debts.
On the gold standard, France, Italy
and Germany doubtless share the Amer
lean desire to see the pound stabilized,
but the British seem determined not to
stabilize until there has been war
debt settlement and some new all-round
reduction In tariffs, especially in the
United States
Private credits frozen in Germany in
tereSt Great Britain as much as the
United States, but France and Italy are
much less concerned.
Great Britain and France, like the
United States, want to see the political
tension due to the German demands for
treaty revision relaxed, but France
wants to keep the status quo. at least
territorially. Italy tends to sympathize
with Germany, and Great Britain occu-
pies a vague position somewhere be-
tween the French and German theses.
On naval disarmament there Is an
important technical disagreement be-
tween Great Britain and the United
States, and Great Britain makes further
reductions depend on an agreement be-
tween France and Italy, which so far
disagree completely over the Italian de-
nland for parity with France In gen.
eral, France makes armament reduc-
tioE1S depend on new security agree
ments wherein it wishes the United
States. Great Britain and Italy to Join.
With respect to the Far Eastern
crisis, Great Britain and France have
thus far tended to sympathize rather
with Japan than with the United States.
and Italy and Germany have been pecu-
liarly noncommittal while Russia, after
first making fruitless move toward the
United States. lately seems to have been
trying to come to terms with Japan.
This, then. Is the confused and con-
fusing international background against
which the war-debt issue will stand out
when President Hoover confers with
Gov. Roosevelt for the momentous de-
c1sion next Tuesday.
Copyright, 1922