"Greatest Show"

Came Dec. 15 and the welching of European states on their war debts to the U. S. had almost ceased to be news. Editors tucked it away last week on inside pages, gave front page play to a blast from H. R. H. Prince Louis of Monaco that his Government will ask the U. S. Supreme Court to compel the State of Mississippi to make good on $100,000 worth of its defaulted bonds of 1831 to 1837, now owned by the Principality.

That the U. S. may "sooner or later'' default on Liberty and Victory bonds was cheerfully suggested by Manhattan's irrepressible Daily News which asked:

"Why not look at the World War as having been a show: the biggest, farthest flung, most interesting and by far the most expensive show ever staged on this planet? . . . Your mother, say, bought $1.000 worth of Liberty bonds, due in 1947 and drawing interest all the time at 3 1/2% a year. Should she have her $1,000 back in 1947 plus interest?

"She bought her ticket to the show, as most of us did; she had a swell and exciting and deeply moving time while the show lasted. Should she now demand her money back? Should any of us demand our money back?

"Whether we should or shouldn't, it does look more and more as if we are not going to get it back."

Meanwhile on Dec. 15 minute Finland was again the only European state to pay in full, her mite being $229.623. Again Britain chipped in the largest token, $7,500,000 on $117,670,765.

Again France was the largest defaulter, $22.200.927, the others being Poland ($5,408.292), Belgium ($2,859,454) and Estonia ($435,408). King Albert's little Belgium again sent the tartest note to the U. S. State Department, snapped that she signed her debt agreement only after verbal assurances in Washington that her payments to the U. S. would be "amply covered by German reparations payments" shut off by the Hoover Moratorium.

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