Note from E. Tsouderos regarding the settlement of Greece"s war debt to England.

173 considered as the net war debt of Greece, the settlement of which should be effected in accordance with Art. 8 of the Agreement of August 31,1925 or in accordance with the arrange- ments to be made with other Allied countries. It might be argued, moreover, that a claim on our side to the effect that the items marked A1 and B in the Table appended to the aforementioned Agreement should likewise be further reduced, would not be devoid of foundation. III As a matter of fact, the British Government has already reached debt settlements with Italy and Rumania. These settlements afford grounds for putting into application Art. 8 of our Agreement. a) Italy owed £570,000,000 and in settlement of this indebt- edness she will pay only £272,250,11.6, she will effect an extinction of her debt by paying only 48% of the principal due. This precedent might be well invoked by little and financially weak Greece for obtaining the reductions above referred to, even in the absence of the stipulations of Article 4 of the Agreement of August 31,1925. b) The agreement with Rumania is not officially known in its details, nor are we aware of the total amount of her debt and the deductions made. From unofficial information, however, it became known that Rumania will repay over the period of 82 years an amount equal to the principal of her indebtedness. We do not think that a more harsh treatment than that shown to two Allied countries which have come out of the War stronger, should be meted out to Greece which has emerged from - 4 -