Hungary Up

Since the Hoover Moratorium ended in 1932, the U. S. State Department has been sending semiannual duns to those governments which have defaulted on debts totaling $11,000,000,000. Last week a defaulter answered. Hungary announced that on Dec. 15 it would make a payment of $9,828.16, first by a defaulting nation* since Great Britain ceased its "token" payments in 1933. Hungary's payment, also a token, amounted to 22.8-c- per dollar on the semiannual payment due.

Not a War debt, Hungary's obligation arose from the purchase of flour from the U. S. Grain Corporation in 1920, funded in a $1,939,000 bond issue in 1924. Hungary made payments until 1931, but with accumulated interest the debt now amounts to $2,292,025.39.

A tight, well-managed squirearchy whose armament expenditures reach only one-twelfth of its balanced budget, Hungary never ceased to earmark money for the debt payment. Although its partial resumption leaves it a defaulter and thus still ineligible for further U. S. loans under the Johnson Act, consensus was that little Hungary, by stepping up alongside little Finland, had made a shrewd and timely move back toward the U. S. money market.

*Finland never defaulted.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.