Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1933. PROSPECTS FOR THE YEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 1, 3 January 1933, Page 6

Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1933. PROSPECTS FOR THE YEAR.

For cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that vie can do.

Is the Avorld convalescent, and are we progressing towards recovery? Mr. Baldwin thinks a change for the better has come, that there is a great difference between conditions to-day and those of a year ago. Nor is he alone in his opinion. There does not seem to be. much change in official opinion in the United States on the question of debt revision, but there is a growing feeling amongst the more thoughtful Americans that revision is necessary quite as much in the interest of America herself as in those of Europe. In the current issue of "The International Mind," Dr. Nicholas Butler, the President of Columbia University, says that the present world crisis is before all else a crisis of confidence, and that as long as the present paralysing uncertainty on the subject of war debts continues, confidence cannot exist in the world. He says America has lost much more in her foreign trade than she can hope to get back from debt payments. Sir Harold Beauchamp thinks that the present deplorable state of affairs in the United States may compel the Democrat Party to recognise that America must revise the war debts and lower her tariff Avail. Last year there were nearly 32,000 business failures in the States, with liabilities of over £185,000,000—the greatest ever recorded. This fact is a striking proof of Dr. Butler's statement that America has lost more than she can ever hope to gain by her attitude towards debt payments.

Perhaps the greatest ground for hope will be found in the spirit in which Britain and the Empire have faced their difficulties. The times have called for the exercise of British ■ tenacity and pluck, and both have been shown in a marked degree. Also, difficult days have brought to many new standards of life. This has been noted by one commentator on America. He says that prosperity led many Americans to believe in the fallacy that a full and happy life could be built out of "motor cars, expensive devices and a miscellany of gadgets." Not only Americans, but men of all other nationalities, have had to dispense with many of these luxuries, and have found that the best joys are to be found elsewhere. The world needed to return to simpler ways, and in this respect the depression has not been without its good side. Also, nations have been compelled to sink some of their minor differences in order that they may co-operate in a common fight against economic ills. The whole world is in distress, and the whole world must work together to promote recovery.