"Lump Sum"?

Pursued by panting newsfolk of normal size who could barely keep up with his towering strides, the fifth son of the 26th Earl of Crawford loped around to a side door of the British Foreign Office last week.

While cameramen chorused, "Just one more, Sir Ronald!" he posed for an instant, cheerfully waggling his umbrella. "You all know why I am here," he said, then popped inside for a 45-minute conference with his diplomatic chief, Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon. When the two emerged together tall Sir John, who was hatless, seemed dwarfed by taller Sir Ronald Lindsay, Ambassador to the U. S. of His Majesty King George. Chatting with animation, Sir John and Sir Ronald crossed to No. 10 Downing St. In the white and gold Cabinet Room they were greeted by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald, Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain and the rest of Britain's "Big Five" Debt Committee, all eager to hear from Sir Ronald what he had been told by President-elect Roosevelt, President Hoover and Congressional leaders.

Soon the Associated Press rumored exclusively that the "Big Five" were thinking of offering to settle with the U. S. on the basis of a lump sum payment of between $1,250,000,000 and $2,000,000,000. Next day British editors called so big a lump "over-optimistic." In Washington Democrat Rainey bristled: "I think I can say that Congress will not approve such a reduction."

The suggested reduction, Hearstpapers declared, would amount to settling with Britain for roughly ''a dime on the dollar" of her 1933 agreement to pay the U. S. some $11,000.000,000 over 62 years. Since Germany's Reparations debt to the Allies was scaled down, provisionally, at Lausanne at 1-c- on the $1 Britons were shocked by U. S. scorn of a dime.

But soon after Sir Ronald advised the Big Five, leading newsorgans started to tell Britons for the first time in months that the U. S. Government has a ''real case" for collection because much of the U. S. has really been prostrated by Depression.*

"There may be developments of a disturbing kind in the near future in the U. S.," said the London Times, "though desperate efforts to avert them are being made."

Various Plans. In the Lindsay blood is a flair for stamp collecting (his father's U. S. stamps alone brought $200,000 when sold to a U. S. citizen), a penchant for the U. S. (Sir Ronald is the relict of one moneyed U. S. woman, the husband of another) and a winning way which has kept Lindsays in Parliament for nearly 500 years.

To win Franklin Delano Roosevelt's approval, Sir Ronald tucked into his briefcase an assortment of new British plans, one reputedly a "lump sum" offer, sailed on the S. S. Majestic "with full instructions."

Despite Sir Ronald's statement "everything has been arranged between President-elect Roosevelt and myself." negotiations will continue until Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald is thoroughly convinced that a settlement has virtually been reached or is virtually impossible. In the latter case Scot MacDonald will not go to the U. S. at all and Britain will quietly default. In the former happy case, Britain's snowy-haired Prime Minister will go with appropriate fanfare to sleep once more in the White House, will "agree" with President Roosevelt on debts as he "agreed" with President Hoover on naval disarmament, thus paving the way for the success of the London Naval Conference (TIME, Oct. 14, 21, 1929).

Under the Lausanne Pacts (unratified) Germany is due to pay the Allies $700,000,000. This, plus $400,000,000 owed by France on her purchase of U. S. War stocks, totals $1,100,000.000. Last week London financiers threw in another $400,000,000 for good measure, took the grand total $1,500.000,000 as their "lump sum." The U. S. they opined (and in some cases wagered) will not collect more than that from all the Allied Powers. Any Anglo-U. S. settlement, they thought, will have to be made provisional until France comes to debt terms with the U. S.

* For a year after the crash of October 1929, British newsorgans exulted in the "collapse" of the U. S. In recent months Britons, absorbed in contemplation of themselves as impoverished and deserving debtors, have paid less attention to the plight of the U. S.

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