Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1933. TOUCH AND GO

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 138, 14 June 1933, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1933. TOUCH AND GO

On June 16, 1932, the European Power's met in conference at Lausanne to deal with the problem of German reparations, which' was hot only poisoning the Atmosphere of Europe but threatening the whole world with bankruptcy and war. .Thanks to the faith and the persuasiveness and the pertinacity of Mr. Mac Donald and the unexpected reasonableness of,both the French and the German representatives, a settlement was. reached on July 9, which washailed as the greatest achievement in post-war diplomacy with the single exception of the Locarno Treaty. But though the settlement was of intimate concern to the, whole world, it was a European, settlement only. The European creditors of Germany were themselves in the grip of their American creditor. Their settlement with her had therefore to be made contingent on their obtaining a settlement with the United' States, and the other economic and financial problems of the world crisis were postponed .for. a World Economic Conference to be held "later in the year." But the excitements of an election campaign left President Hoover and his advisers little time to spare for the distresses of 'tb,e world. Protesting'that the Lausanne Conference was no affair of theirs, they passed by on the other side. It was not possible for them even to open negotiations for fear of being'misunderstood by the electors* but they were not afraid to agree to join in.a World Conference from which war debts and tariff were to be excluded. Fortunately for the world no. less than for the. United States, President Hoover and his party sustained a crushing defeat at the elections in November. But unfortunately for everybody the antiquated rigidity of the American Constitution —aft inconvenience which has now been remedied—-prevented a successor of a much more' liberal mind and a much more "coming-on disposition," arid a Congress, which ori tire tariff at any rate is much more liberally minded than its predecessor, from taking charge till the beginning of March. Thus it is that after ; the political; exigencies of France had postponed the Lausanne Conference for five months those of the United States have dictated the postponement for about twice that period of the Conference that was to ratify its work. , Meanwhile, those unsettled questions which are said to, have no respect for the repose of nations have been acting after their kind. While international diplomacy has been marking time for a good.deal more than a year the nations have continued at a steady accelerating pace their Gadarene rush to destruction. For a considerable part of that time the United States itself was actually heading that rush, but the same statesman who by his astonishing courage and energy has deprived his country of this unenviable lead during trie last three months has filled us all with a new hope by proving that he still has enough reserve to enable him to lend the world a helping hand also. But with all their . goodwill, breadth of mind, and genius for conciliation, there was one ttyng that in their conversations at Washington President Roosevelt and Mr. Mac Donald were unable even tentatively to settle. The only agreement that they reached regarding the war debt was that the problem was not solved, that it was not to come before the Economic Conference, but if it was not solved it would wreck the Conference—a cheerful conclusion, indeed! Yet in spitp of it they fixed the date of the Conference for June 12, which, as the next war debt instalments fell due on the 15th, meant on the face of it,'that they gave the Conference a life of. two or three days. Such an arrangement would have been so absurd that one was compelled to assume cither that the President and the Prime Minister had come very near to an agreement and expected to get the rest of the way before the 12th, or that the President was hoping to put the utmost pressure upon Congress, and perhaps to get it adjourned before the Conference met. There was

also the possibility that he was hoping by this means to put pressure upon the British Cabinet, whose desperate anxieties during the last few clays have shown how keenly it feels it. But the opening day of the Conference proved that the nut which the Washington conversations had failed to crack was uncracked still, and it' did something worse. How can the strong reference which Mr; Mac Donald made to the war debts in his speech from the chair be reconciled with the definite agreement that the question should not come before the Conference and its consequent exclusion from the agenda? What is described as "one of his best declamations" was the statement "that the war debts must be settled; indeed, taken up immediately and a seal put on the Lausanne labours." If that does not mean that America, whose hesitation has delayed the ratification of those labours, should within the next forty-eight hours do her duty and save die Conference from wreck, "We fail to see what it v does mean. That may well have been one of, the reasons why the American Secretary of State postponed ■ his speech, and it is not the least surprising to learn today on the authority of the' "Daily Telegraph's" diplomatic correspondent that Miv Mac Donald's reference to the debt issue "caused surprise and even some resentment among the American delegation." What would have happened if Mr. Cordell Hull had taken up the chairman's challenge? The Conference would not have needed to wait till the 15th for an explosion. The news which came in at this point seemed'too good to be true. President Roosevelt has not accepted the British offer of a token-money payment, and the matter is still at large. The cables between London and Washington have been busy with the interchange of offers and counteroffers in the hope of averting the wreck that is threatened tomorrow. Whitehall has had "thirty .hours of almost continuous tension comparable with the war-time crisis." Meetsings of Cabinet and its sub-committee have followed one another in quick succession for 18 hours. A crowded House of ..Commons was waiting while Mr. Neville Chamberlain, locked in a room behind cthe Conference lobby at the Geological Museum,^was / drafting a statement on. wliich the fate .of the world for years to"'come' may hang. It is a queer way of doing business and makes one Wonder more than ever at the mystery of the timirfg of one of the most momentous occasions, 'in- human history. •'