SANK TO REST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 204, 30 August 1933, Page 11

SANK TO REST.

CONFERENCE ENDS. I SINCERITY AND CYNICISM. KNELL OR TOCSIN ? (By a Special Correspondent.) LONDON, July 27. Through a long, depressing and sultry day the first International Economic and Monetary Conference sank slowly to rest and desuetude. Whether it is the end or a beginning is an open question. Yet that question was the only interesting suggestion that occupied the minds of 2000 people in the mueeum of fossils during the hours while the conference wae in process of dissolution. In the end, when the gavel fell and Prime Minister Mac Donald finally declared the adjournment, neither the delegates nor the civilisation which they represented knew or could vaguely surmise whether this conference sounds the knell of an old era or rings the tocsin for a new one. Everyone who spoke gave lip service to the hopo that the conference was merely to be held in recess. The note of sincerity in expressing this hope for a further conference was certainly unmistakable in the speeches of the Americans, former Governor Cpx and Secretary of State Hull. But in handing the conference its hat and cane a certain alacrity seemed to blanket the enthusiasm expressed by the British in the speeches of Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Walter Runciman, president of the British Board of Trade. Crocodile Tears. Curiously enough, a most intelligent, forthright and illuminating demand for continuance of the conference idea came from the representatives of the Russian Soviet Government. As for the French and Italians, their regret was tempered in tho speeches of their representatives by an obvious undercurrent of cynicism. It was as though, while dropping a silent tear from one eye, they cautiously winked the other. But one note was sounded in unison through all the long day's oratory; the note of recrimination —recrimination against the United States, specifically the President of the United States for dealing the blow that made the conference finally futile. It was almost polite. The president's attitude was referred to as "an unfortunate circumstance," or as an event "entirely unforeseen," or as one of those regrettable circumstances made inevitable by the swiftly-movmg course of events. Under the camouflage a£ circumlocution there lingered a certain bitterness toward the Americans and their President. The leadership which they might have taken was lost. Whatever leadership is left at the end of this conference undoubtedly is in the hands of the British, specifically in the_ hands of MacDonald. Upon him rests the responsibility for the future of this last vast development of democratic Parliamentary Government known as the World Economic Conference. Mr. Mac Donald's speech in dosing the conference was sincere enough, at times eloquent —never quite so eloquent or so sincere nor as full of fire as the speech of Secretary Hull —but nous the less sincere and eloquent, although not convincing. He'could not fan an old flame, yet the spark may not die. It ia as unfair to say the conference idea has failed as it is to insist that this conference justified in any large manner the hopes of those who called it. A Writ of Indictment. Time and again in the speeches on that first day of the conference, beginning with the King's speech, and through the whole line of introductory remarks from delegates, one heard tjiat unless the conference succeeded, disaster might meet and menace tho world. The conference has done nothing to minimise the menace of economic disaster. That it has done worthwhile things no one can question—many of them small things, necessary things which some day may be vital things. But the big things which the conference was to do, stabilise currencies, reduce tariff walls and raise commodity prices, remain undone. Perhaps it was unfair to expect that they would be done. In a capitalistic world it is difficult to solve these very problems, for they look to the establishment of national equality in an essentially competitive world where there can be no national equality. This confusion must have been in the hearts of the delegates all this long, hot and dreary day as they listened to the flood of oratory that poured over the conference. They adjourned without a cheer, without applause, and with little hope, but also without a definite pessimism. Bewildered, baffled and befuddled, they walked out of the suffocating room into a gentle rain, cooling and healing— maybe the tears of angels over the wayward works of man.— (N.A.N.A.) —