The Burden of Debt.

The central problem of the world today can be summed up in the little word of four letters, “debt.” It is the oldest and the newest of world-problems. Its post-war development is stupendous. Pre-war economists would never have admitted that such debts could be. And yet they are. Writing about five years ago, after the decay of the “Reconstruction” hopes of 1918–20, H. G. Wells (in The World of William Clissold) philosophised on the open wound that debts represent in the body of society. The wound is still unhealed. Hitherto the ultimate creditor, the United States, has been represented as implacable. But a new note was sounded on 20th October by the Washington correspondent of The Times. He stated that the United States Treasury and banking leaders were “discussing a draft plan for a possible moratorium on the Allied debt payments to U.S.A.”