The past year has brought us near to completion of settlements of the
indebtedness of foreign governments to the United States.
The act of Congress approved February 4, 1929, authorized the settlement
with the Government of Austria along lines similar to the terms of
settlement offered by that Government to its other relief creditors. No
agreement has yet been concluded with that government, but the form of
agreement has been settled and its execution only awaits the Government of
Austria securing the assent by all the other relief creditors of the terms
offered. The act of Congress approved February 14, 1929, authorized the
settlement with the Government of Greece, and an agreement was concluded on
May 10, 1929.
The Government of France ratified the agreement with us on July 27, 1929.
This agreement will shortly be before the Congress and I recommend its
approval.
The only indebtedness of foreign governments to the United States now
unsettled is that of Russia and Armenia.
During the past year a committee of distinguished experts under American
leadership submitted a plan looking to a revision of claims against Germany
by the various Governments. The United States denied itself any
participation in the war settlement of general reparations and our claims
are comparatively small in amount. They arise from costs of the army of
occupation and claims of our private citizens for losses under awards from
the Mixed Claims Commission established under agreement with the German
Government. In finding a basis for settlement it was necessary for the
committee of experts to request all the Governments concerned to make some
contribution to the adjustment and we have felt that we should share a
proportion of the concessions made.
The State and Treasury Departments will be in a position shortly to submit
for your consideration a draft of an agreement to be executed between the
United States and Germany providing for the payments of these revised
amounts. A more extensive statement will be submitted at that time.
The total amount of indebtedness of the various countries to the United
States now funded is $11,579,465,885. This sum was in effect provided by
the issue of United States Government bonds to our own people. The payments
of the various Governments to us on account of principal and interest for
1930 are estimated at a total of about $239,000,000, for 1931 at about
$236,000,000, for 1932 at about $246,000,000. The measure of American
compromise in these settlements may be appreciated from the fact that our
taxpayers are called upon to find annually about $475,000,000 in interest
and in addition to redeem the principal of sums borrowed by the United
States Government for these purposes.