The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-01-16

DdpIl6.
THE breakdown of capitalist sta
Il bilization has inevitably reopen
ed the debts question, as it has re-
opened the Versailles settlement
and re-opened the Washington set
Element of the Far East.
The partial Sterilization of CAPT.
talism in 1929 was based on five
main pillars: /. The maintenance
of the Versailles settlement in Eu-
rope, on the basis of German &C
ceptance of Versailles in return for
Anglo-American assistance in re-
constructing German capitalism; 2.
The Dawes Plan, fixing PREPARATIONS,
and associated European
debt settlements; 8. The restora-
ton of the gold standard; A. The
American export of capital to Eu-
rope which made possible the re-
storation of the gold standard and
the debts and reparations pay
ments; 5. The Washington settle
ment of the Far East, delaying the
open fight for the spoiIs of China
and limiting the tempo of the naval
race.
PILLARS HAVE
BROKEN DOWN
The artificial character of this
restoration of capitalism, which was
yisibly based in respect of Europe
on the American export of capital,
thus piling up future contradic-
tons, was exposed at the time by
the Communists, who, in defiance
of all the capitalist hymns of tri-
umph and revival, declared that it
was "a rotten" "illusory" restora-
ton, leading to greater crisis. To-
day it is noticeable that the Brit
ish official Note on the debts ques-
ton of December 1st has admitted
this illusory character of the whole
revival:
1.-THE prosperity of the period
1929 was to large extent illu-
sorry, and the seeds of future
trouble had already been sown."
Today all these pillars have
broken down. The Versailles set
Element is challenged by Germany
and the claim to re-arm. The
Washington settlement is torn in
two by the japanese conquest of
Manchuria, and by the Lytton Re-
port, envisaging the partition of
China. The economic settlement in
Europe has still more completely
broken down. With the crisis, the
export of American capital dried
up, as payment on the already ex-
ported capital became doubtful. But
the payments has only been main
tanned by this export. Credits in
Germany became frozen. Repara-
tions inevitably dried up. The gold
standard collapsed in the majority
of countries. Thus inevitably in the
final stage the American debts set
Elements come into question. The
eliminating stage of the fight be-
comes the fight of the Victor Pow
ers" amons themselves over the
debts.
THE peculiar character of the
L debts fight is that it is a fight
between rival imperislist Powers
occupying the roles of both credit
ors and debtors
The imperialist powers have long
been accustomed to the role of
world creditors, holding the colonial
and semi-colonial countries in the
chains of debt-slavery to them
selves. Here no international
problem" was held to arise, when
it was only question of bleed
ing impoverished India or Egypt.
Any recalcitrance of the debtor
would be met with simple and i'm
mediate coercion. Indeed, the irony
of history so CHANGED that Brit
ain was at the very moment en-
gagged in coercing Ireland into the
payment of debt annuities (based
not even on any delivery Of goods
at all, but on ancient land robbery
arr nothing else), at the very mo-
ment at which it entered into
pleadings with the United States
to be let off its own payments.
But the debt fight between the
imperialist Powers is a new and
extreme development. Indeed, this
Is what underlies the vexed prob
lens of transfer" Between the
colonial country, subjected to sub
ordinate roles of agriculture and
the supply Of raw materials, and
the imperialist metropolis with its
dsyeloped industry. there was no