Note 13 — Chapter I · OUR DAILY BREAD

Mr Hoover seems to suggest that their repayment should never take place. To a meeting of Bankers he says:—

‘Even if we extend these credits and if upon Europe’s recovery we then attempt to exact the payment of these sums by import of commodities, we shall have introduced a competition with our own industries that cannot be turned back by any tariff wall.... I believe that we have to-day an equipment and a skill in production that yield us a surplus of commodities for export beyond any compensation we can usefully take by way of imported commodities.... Gold and remittances and services cannot cover this gulf in our trade balance.... To me there is only one remedy, and that is by the systematic permanent investment of our surplus production in reproductive works abroad. We thus reduce the return we must receive to a return of interest and profit.’

A writer in the New Republic (Dec. 29th., 1920.) who quotes this says pertinently enough:—

‘Mr Hoover disposes of the principal of our foreign loans. The debtors cannot return it and we cannot afford to receive it back. But the interest and profit which he says we may receive—that will have to be paid in commodities, as the principal would be if it were paid at all. What shall we do when the volume of foreign commodities received in payment of interest and profit becomes very large and our industries cry for protection?’