Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1932-12-09
This Week
BY ARTHUR BRISBANE
Nearly All About Debts.
Geneva and Japan.
Parasites by Plane.

OF ask Uncle sam 10 forget her debt
She borrowed twelve and a half mil.
lions in 1927, and in good diplomatic
language says she will not pay it. You
will soon hear from others.
Germany is all mixed up on govern
ment matters, no one thus far able to
form cabinet. But she has Won Hin.
denburg at the helm, and is rid of repa.
rations payments. 1t might be worse.
There is little doubt that Congress
will say pay or default" Senator Cap
per of Kansas says, THE people in my
State will never stand for modification
or cancellation" You would not Ell
ther, if you had been selling wheat at
the (. o. b. Kansas farm price.
Senator Hiram Johnson says:
"They can and must pay"
They, at least the big ones, can pay,
for they have the gold. But there is no
must" They can also default, and
there would be no war about it.
Washington believes that England
will make the S95,OO0,O0O payment due
this month, 'if the United States in
sists." Payment would be made in
bar gold, enough ounces of gold to
equal in value 95,OO0,000 dollars, at our
dollar price of gold.
1t is business matter with England.
Her Prime Minister'S financial advisers
believe that default would be more dis
astrous than payment of the gold bars.
There is row in the League of Ma
tons about China and Japan that will
not be smoothed out. Japan does not
propose to be the subordinate of two
European countries, calling themselves
q league.
There will be ten thousand rows,
among politicians, when time to dis
tribute offices arrives.
There is violent financial row in
England, where many advocate de-
faulting on the debt, to save the pound
from collapse. Beaverbrook and some
others, old fashioned, ask What shall
it profit nation" to save its exchange
and lose its honor? They all think
this nation should be ashamed to ask
payment. But we seem to remember
that they were not ashamed to ask for
and take the billions.
1t is a world of rows and quarrels,
which means that men are frightened,
but 1t will all pass, and the sun will
shine again.
Geneva reports that Japan will de-
mand revision of the 5-5-3 ratio of the
London Naval Treaty, making Japan
inferior to Britain and this country, on
the sea, as is to 5.
Japan will demand abolition of air.
craft carriers and a larger quota of
submarines for Japan.
Why not let Japan and other powers
build whatever they want, while this
country builds whatever it needs with
out asking anybody's advice or con-
sent?
What we need is such weapons as
would enable us to destroy the ship
ping and principal cities of any nation
foolish enough to attack us, and that is
what we ought to have.
The American Federation of Labor
convention in Cincinnati denounced
private workmen's compensation COM
panies as parasites, cancers and rae
keteers," and demanded a State fund
compensation plan.
Ohio's State system is 81 per cent
below charges by private companies.
Senator Wagner, of New York, de-
mands that men employed on Govern
ment construction projects shall work
only 80 hours a week. That would
mean FIVE days of six hours each, or
any other arrangement of days and
hours agreed upon.
Contractors should be consulted as
to distribution of hours, in connection
with effective use of building materi-
ais and machines. Let machines work
as many hours, men as few hours, as
possible.
In days to come a six-hour day will
seem long.
1t is not very long since women in
New England mills worked from day
light to dark. They would have worked
longer, had there been electric lights
then.
Scientists say insects might have
conquered the world, preventing the
survival of men. They might even rule
the world yet.
Meanwhile, in addition to being dan
gerous, insects can be useful. For in
stance, Australia sent gifts of lady
bugs that kill the scale that destroys
fruit trees to California and Florida.
Now Florida, grateful, sends to Austria
liza, from her Agricultural Department,
500 pumpkin bugs. Australia has pump
kin bugs; they destroy crops, but Aus
tralia's pumpkin bugs lack parasites. T"
Each of the 900 bugs sent from Flor
ida to Australia will go with innumer-
able small bug-killing parasites at
tached to it's legs.
These parasites are expected on ar
rival, to annihilate the Australian