Statement of Loans and Funding Agreements

STATEMENT OF LOANS AND FUNDING AGREEMENTS Great Britain.—For Great Britain the figures in Table II. are taken from the Financial Statement of the Chancellor of the Ex chequer, House of Commons report No. 84 of 1925, but the figures in most cases were altered on final adjustment and are only approximate. The Belgian pre-Armistice debt of £Ilo,000,000 is not given, as, under the Treaty of Versailles, this was a charge on German reparations. The figures do not include loans made to the Dominions for war purposes, but do include advances made to cer tain new and ex-enemy states as well as to Allies, in the period immediately following the war.

Great Britain's only debt to another Allied Government was that of $4, 2 7 7,0o0,000 to the United States. As will be seen from the above, her advances to Allies greatly exceeded the amount bor rowed from the United States.

United States.

The United States was a creditor only; and after her entry into the war in April 1917 incurred the main responsibility for financing the Allies, among whom Britain was the principal debtor. After the Armistice large sums were provided by the American Government for relief credits in Central Europe and for purchases of war stores. Table I. shows the total loans to the Allies and other Governments as given in the annual state ment of the Secretary of the United States Treasury for 1927. The majority of these loans have since been the subject of funding agreements, as the following official statement shows TABLE I. Funding Agreements of Certain Countries with the Table i. Funding Agreements of Certain Countries with the United States France.—The position of France, which, like Great Britain, was both a borrower and a lender, is more obscure. It was only in July 1929 that France ratified the funding agreements made with either Great Britain, from whom she borrowed i446,226,000, or the United States, from whom she received $3,404,000,o0o. On the other hand, she advanced considerable sums to Russia and the smaller Allies; here, too, no refunding arrangements have been made, and in many cases the exact amount is in dispute.

Except in the case of the franc debt of Tsarist Russia the figures apparently exclude interest. No account is here taken of counter-claims which are of considerable importance in certain cases.

Italy.

Italy was in the main a borrower, although to some extent she made advances to other Allies. After her entry into the war in May 1915 she borrowed from Britain f 369,824,000 and from the United States $1,648,054,050. According to official figures her loans to other Allies were as follows, but certain of the items in the French account are in dispute. Foreign currencies are converted at the rates ruling on April 23, 1926:— Great Britain . . . . . . . . . £483,321,000 United States . . . . . . . . . France fr 6,o23,3oo,000 Italy lire 36,045,000 Other Allies.—Belgium was also a borrower, and received con siderable sums from the United States, Great Britain and France. As a recognition, however, of the damage done consequent on the violation of the treaty of 1839, Germany undertook in Article 232 of the Treaty of Versailles "to make reimbursement of all sums which Belgium has borrowed from the Allied and Associated Gov ernments up to Nov. II, 1918, together with interest at the rate of 5% per annum on such sums." At the time of the Peace Con ference the representatives of Great Britain, France and the United States agreed, subject to ratification by their Govern ments, to accept German bonds to the value of the Allied Armistice loans to Belgium thus freeing Belgium from the respon sibility of these debts. This was eventually carried out by Great Britain and France. The United States Congress, however, refused to ratify the agreement, and the pre-Armistice debt was the ject of a special arrangement in the subsequent Belgian Debt Funding agreement. For the sake of convenience, the following table gives the advances made by each of the Allies during both periods:— Pre-Armistice Post-Armistice Great Britain . . . . £ilo,000,000* £i8,5oo,000 United States of America . $171,78o,000 $207,307,200 France . . fr. fr. *Including interest at 5%.

Of the other Allies, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Portugal, Armenia, Nicaragua and Liberia were all borrowers, while after the Armistice the new states of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia received advances for various pur poses, and Austria and Hungary, of the ex-enemy states, received relief credits. The actual amounts lent can be seen from the preceding tables.