A STARTLING PROPOSAL

The Senatorial Committee on Foreign Relations received a startling testimony from Mr. Vanderlip yesterday. This New York banker has just returned from an extended private tour through Europe where he sounded the individual opinion of leading continental financiers. He received the impression, which he stated yesterday without comment, that England and France are expecting the United States to cancel the huge loans we have made. If this is true, it certainly deserves comment. The Committee cannot be blamed for expressing surprise.

It cannot be denied that French and English industry is in a dangerously low condition. Particularly France will need aid for many years. Neither can it be denied that the United States was engaged in war only long enough to give her industry a hearty boom. To be sure this country has amassed a great debt and submitted to heavy taxation; yet its condition is more prosperous than in 1914. However America placed no limit upon her resources when she joined her Allies. Every penny of the nation's wealth was thrown upon the altar; that it was not sacrificed as the wealth of other nations was due to the happy arrival of the armistice.

For an opinion to arise within some of our allied countries that the United States should make up their sacrifice because her sacrifice was not fully accepted seems unworthy of their recent noble action. A debt is a debt and no amount of difference between the debtor and his creditor can wipe away the obligation until the debt is paid. Now for certain Europeans to infer that the Allies' years of fighting before the United States entered the war should be ample pay for the loans which we made them, not only is an alteration of the obligation of contract but shows a disappointing lack of appreciation of the service which America rendered.