South Island Main Trunk Railway

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21335, 30 November 1934, Page 10

South Island Main Trunk Railway

In a hastily framed letter, printed this morning, Mr J. E. Strachan, principal of the Rangiora High School, protests against our view that the Christchurch Unemployment Committee was wrong in supporting " any endeavour to complete the " South Island main trunk railway at " an early date." We assumed, Mr Strachan says, that the Government's decision to stop work on the line was the last word on the matter, and that the project is now dead and buried; and he exclaims against this "extraordinary attitude." We did not assume it. The Government's decision, we said, was reached after an exhaustive enquiry; and "any rc- ■' sponsible public body which dis- •' sents . . has a duty to go into " the question very thoroughly." That the Unemployment Committee adopted its resolution without considering new evidence or reconsidering old evidence, without advancing any better arguments than " a few vague generalisations," was our sufficient and unanswerable objection to this piece of rash importunacy. Mr Strachan does not turn it from rash to reasonable. " Many " people," he urges, believe that the railway could now be completed " at " very much less cost than was " thought possible three years ago." No doubt the belief is well-founded; but the line was not condemned on the sole ground of high capital cost. "Perhaps," Mr Strachan adds, "the " line could be built at no real cost " at all, since labour and community " credit are being paid for whether "they are used for useful purposes " or not." An insinuating and seductive "perhaps"; but it is for Mr Strachan to explain what he means by " real cost," and to show that it is wise to create a work, even for nothing, without knowing whether it will run at a loss or at a profit and without being sure that it will not, when created, obstruct a more profitable work—especially when the latest expert enquiry has produced an unanswered finding against it. " Despite the efforts to keep the pub- " lie befogged," says Mr Strachan, finally, "the truth is emerging that " the South Island main trunk "railway . . . can be completed " to-day without any cost to the com"munity beyond the labour and "effort we are prepared to put into "the project." What these mystifying efforts are and who is making them it is hard to guess, and it is a pity that Mr Strachan, otherwise so bold, is here so reserved; but if an economic truth of such tremendous importance really is " emerging," he cannot be too resolute and prompt in dragging it out into the open. When he has done that it will, indeed, be " quite time for the Govern- " ment to consider another exhaus- " tive enquiry into economic and "financial possibilities," but hardly until them Germany and the Peace Treaty Mr Baldwin's speech in the House of Commons on German rearmament was received, so the cable news says, in "tense silence." As Mr Baldwin was in effect saying that, in the opinion of the British Government, Germany has for more than a year been deliberately and systematically violating the arms clauses in th-? Treaty of Versailles, this is not surprising. The fact that Germany is rearming is in itself sufficiently disturbing. It lessens I ho prospect of a general disarmament convention, it puts serious obstacl ?s in the way of Germany's return to the League of Nations, and it must giv- a powerful impetus to the scramble for defensive alliances. But what is more disturbing is that the breach of the arms clauses weakens the whole fabric of the Treaty of Versailles. And the Treaty of Versailles constitutes the political foundation of Europe today. At least half-a-dozen States and innumerable national boundaries owe their existence to it; and anything which tends to weaken it

must inevitably intensify European unrest. Although Germany's failure to honour her international obligations is a matter for regret and alarm, it will not, in Great Britain at any rate, arouse much moral indignation. Taking the long view, it is impossible not to realise that tor Germany's present actions and siate of mind all the other European powers are in part responsible. Between 1919 and about 1923 Germany was the most peaceable nation in Europe. That she is now to all appearances the most warlike is due in the main to the unwillingness of the former Allied powers, and of France in particular, to recognise that the peace settlement was in some respects unjust and unreasonable. The monstrous reparations claim was persisted with until it had precipitated a financial crisis in Europe and induced a mood of sullen resentment in the German people. The policy of France, unwillingly acquiesced in or feebly opposed by the other powers, has been to keep Germany virtually tinarmed. Inevitably that policy has ended in a breach of the treaty; and the breach has not been entirely one-sided. The arms clauses are prefaced by the statement that tiie disarmament of Germany is the preliminary to general disarmament. As 15 years have elapsed since the war and ail the former Allied powers have increased their armaments instead of reducing them, Germany can fairly claim that a moral obligation lias been evaded. To argue, on narrow legal grounds, that the obligation is not specifi'j and that no time limit is set is merely to argue that this part of the treaty is dishonest and unjust. To say this is not to condone what Germany has done but to indicate that the situation cannot be dealt with merely as an act of lawlessness on Germany's part. It must be dealt with as a breakdown in the peace settlement for which every nation in Europe is in some measure to blame.