"Brutal Borah"

Those readers of the New York Times who scan only its headlines received a strong, specific impression when they read last week: DEBT CANCELLATION . . . PROPOSED BY BORAH.

Radio listeners who paid attention to the booming Senator's 3,000 word address heard him say:

"The debts due the taxpayers of the United States for money loaned to foreign governments are just debts. . . . Will reduction or cancellation bring to the people of the United States an equal or greater benefit than the amount which they may collect from the debts?. . .

"I entertain the belief that the cancellation of the debts in connection with, and as a part of, a program including the settlement of other War problems would have the effect above indicated. But I am equally clear that the cancellation of these debts with nothing more than the present reparations adjustment would not have the effect above indicated."

Briefly, the Chairman of the U. S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee took the stand which President Hoover tried to take with former Premier Pierre Laval of France (TIME, Nov. 2 et seq.). namely that the U. S. should bargain with Europe, offering cancellation in return for all-around reduction of armaments and numerous other concessions for the general good of the world. M. Laval soon showed Mr. Hoover how unwilling Europe is to make any such bargain, preferring that the U. S. simply cancel. Cried Senator Borah:

"I know of no way to. . . justify the reduction or cancellation of the debts. . . than by means of a conference. . . which would be permitted to deal with Reparations and Debts; Disarmament; the re-establishment of the gold standard (31 nations being now off the gold standard) ; the stabilization of silver in the Orient and possibly other questions."

If some U. S. newspapers lapsed into giving the offhand impression that Senator Borah favors cancellation with no strings attached, the French Press did not. ANOTHER THREAT TO FRANCE bristled the Paris Liberte. "The man who is more important than the President in directing American foreign policy in the name of the Senate now asserts brutally that debts and disarmament are linked! He asserts that military and financial problems should be settled by a new conference under Washington's orders. Is France eager to put her head under the knife of the guillotine?"

In London, more cheerful editors welcomed what several of them termed Senator Borah's "conversion," the Liberal News Chronicle recalling that "he has been hitherto one of the most uncompromising opponents of debt revision." In the City (London's Wall Street) there was a cozy feeling that Cancellation-With-Strings-Attached must be the first step toward Cancellation, whether Senator Borah knows that his "conversion" has begun or not.

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