In message , at 08:52:55 on
Sat, 24 Feb 2007, charles remarked:
Might be something to do with incurring HUGE debts to the US during WW1
and the rematch between 1939 and '45.

No. We just paid off the last of that debt earlier this year/end of last.

And it wasn't, as some of the news reports appeared to suggest, a
specially large payment to clear the account this year rather than some
other time in the future, but just the last in a series of annual
payments.
--
Roland Perry