TOPICS OF THE • DAY
AMERICA AND THE FRENCH DEBT
No man in America exercises a greater personal force in politics than Mr. George Harvey, lately Ambassa- dor to Britain, and now the Editor of the Washington Post. Mr. Harvey helped to make President Wilson, and played an equally great part in unmaking him. By his potent pen and by his able counsel he secured Mr. Harding his nomination and election. When Mr. Harding's death made Mr. Coolidge President by descent, Mr. Harvey's advice in the campaign for the nomination of President Coolidge for an elected tenure of the chief executive office brought success. This has placed him in a position of unrivalled influence in the inner councils of the newly- elected President of the United States; Here is a great political record ; but it is not without parallel. There have been political organizers and wire-pullers as eminent as Mr. Harvey—" men behind the scenes," whOse influ- ence, though it could not be expressed in constitutional terms, was deep and far-reaching—but Mr. Harvey is something more than a great political diplomat, more than a great mover of the pieces on the political chess beard. He has something in him besides—something which is not generally -associated with his other gifts. He wields the most potent pen in American politics. He has a gift of clear and mordant speaking in journalism which is unrivalled in our day. This gift consists in a power, which is sometimes almost uncanny, of stripping men and things naked before the public eye, and making the world see the realities, or sometimes the nothingness, below the trappings and lendings of political vesture. Mr. Harvey's habit of asking what things and men actually mean and stand for is often terrifying in its intensity. He shows an ingenuity, a precision and a persistence in investigation which have never been excelled, and he does this, not through a harsh invective or a rhetorical obloquy, but by the use of the plainest and simplest forms of speech.
It is the possession of this power of exposition coupled with what I may call Mr. Harvey's great reserve of political credit which makes the article on the French Debt published in last Sunday's Washington Post the event of the past week. Its repercussions may well make it the event of the New Year. Mr. Harvey has taken the French demand for special treatment and for a special privilege for her debt, and has laid it bare before his countrymen. He shows exactly what it is that the French arc asking. But Mr. Harvey does more than strip the proposal. In order that his countrymen may fully understand, he has sharpened the conclusions which follow from the premises put forward. The result is an example of political and journalistic exposition which, however much we may regret the predicament in which the French have placed themselves, calls for the unstinted admiration of every publicist worthy of his profession. The Shade of Junius himself must look to his laurels.
Sweeping aside the non-essentials, Mr. Harvey tells us that it is plain that " 'France proposes to play England against the United States and lament to each that she can make no settlement with one because, alas ! she would be called upon to pay the other, a horrify- ing and impossible proposition,' and he adds : M. Loucheur, the ablest and frankest of French Ministers of Finance in recent years, spoke the exact truth when he said to the writer of these lines, and subsequently declared for publication, that France considered all of her debts political and not financial, and had not the remotest intention of ever paying any of them.' " That is merciless. True, but our business is not to consider its- merciless quality, but to determine whether it is in fact true or untrue, Mr. Harvey must be heard further on this point. After paying a tribute to Britain for having " paid on the nail all that, in generous consideration of her sturdy and splendid determination to maintain her financial integrity inviolable, was asked of her," he insists that " friendship requires that France should be informed as to the effect on the minds of the American people, especially in regard to the good faith of France, made by the events of the past few weeks."
And now comes the crux of this terrible indictment :- " France will not admit that she is a repudiator. but she cannot deny that she is a defaulter. For various obvious reasons, as often happens to debtors, she cannot pay. For various other reasons, more hazy, she cannot see her way clear to promise ever to pay. What, then, can she do ? What should she do other than any corporation would surely do if confronted by a like con- dition ? Call a meeting Of her two creditors, of course. Give them full access to all information respecting her assets and lia- bilities, resources and prospects, and seek a fair, just, and generous settlement, which assuredly though not necessarily upon the same terms because of diverse circumstances she would receive. If any other way of liquidating her obligations to her honour and her credits can be found, very well. But it is not visible, and we don't believe it exists."
After all, though this may be bitter to hear, it is only hard common sense. If a man has promised to pay and then does not pay, he must either break his word and repudiate his debt or else show that owing to misfortune, and events outside his control, he is physically unable to pay and so must ask for relief either in whole or in part. - The next step is, that the person from whom he asks this relief shall be given proof that the situation is as alleged. In the case of debts you can only say, " I cannot pay," or " I won't pay." Na doubt debtors as a rule think that they can get off paying by saying, " You surely would not be so cruel as to ask me to pay " ; but that attempt, though often made, is hardly ever successful. It is sure to be countered by the question, " Does that mean that you cannot pay or that you won't pay ? "
It would be foolish out of a desire to spare France not to add that the attempt to play America off against England has added fuel to the fire of indignation in America. Why will not France remember that, though America may like to spar with us, and we with her, we both like to keep a family quarrel to ourselves ? Neither of us has the slightest intention of letting anybody else take advantage of our mutual bickerings.
In this matter. of the Debt there is a point which English readers who may be inclined to feel sorry for France, and to think the Americans harsh; must not forget. People are inclined to talk—some did it when Mr. Baldwin, to his eternal credit, dealt with our debt to America exactly as men of honour in private life deal with their personal debts—as though it were specially easy for America to remit debt. America did not laid, France, or any of the other Allies, money out of some great hoard which she possessed and which was available for eleemosynary purposes. When the Allies borrowed from America she went into the market and borrowed from private individuals in order to lend to the Allies. If she had not done this, and the Allies had gone into the American market unsupported by an American endorsement, they would have had to pay three or four times the amount of interest. Since then it has been the American Treasury which has been paying the interest on the money thus borrowed on behalf of France. As long as France can pay, can we expect the Americans to be anything but enraged at the suggestion that the debt is only a political debt ?
They will, we are sure, take no answer to their question except " We are truly sorry, but we absolutely cannot pay." But how can France make this answer when she has lent such large sums as she has lent to the- Little Entente, and when she has continued to spend so reck- lessly on her great imperialistic schemes in Asia and Africa, and finally when she has pursued the policy that she pursued in the Ruhr—the policy which has called up the evil genius of hatred and revenge throughout Germany ? Yet, after all, this is not a time for recriminations, however much they may be justified. No Englishman wants to play America off against France. We want a settlement, and the best settlement that can be made ; and that means the settlement which involves least friction. Therefore we would ask the French with all the power at our command to be plain, serious and absolutely, sincere in their dealings with America over the Debt. ' If they are not, and if they show any signs of finesse or of concealment, they are certain to get into trouble, and trouble of the worst kind. If they are wise, they will do what Mr. Harvey suggests, that is, they will call their two creditors together, put the facts frankly and fully before them, and then say, if they like, " How is it possible for us to pay you two people in full and yet carry on ? " Then it will be for America and Britain to examine the facts and to make suggestions to France as to what she could pay and how she could pay. It will be said, no doubt, that we are suggesting interference by America, and, indeed, in a less degree by Britain, in French affairs, and that that is intolerable. We fully understand the point of view ; but is not loss of freedom the inevitable result of not paying one's debts ? Only the man who is financially independent is free. That is one of the reasons, and indeed the strongest season, why the Spedator from the beginning insisted that Britain must pay her debts in full—pay whatever the Americans from their position as our creditor asked us to pay in discharge of our liabilities. We paid and we are free. We believe that France could and ought to pursue a similar policy.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.,
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