FRUITS OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 187, 6 May 1931, Page 9

FRUITS OF WAR

Existing World Problems

ADVICE FROM HOOVER

Limitation of Armaments

BELGIAN EXPERT’S VIEW

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright

Washington, May 4.

On Monday President Hoover told business representatives of more than two score nations that a further limitation and reduction of armaments must be accomplished if the world was to recuperate economically and banish the fears which contributed to the genera] instability.

Welcoming 1000 delegates at the sixth biennial Congress of the International Chamber, of Commerce, President Hoover said that a large responsibility for the world depression must be placed on the malign inheritances of the World War.

M. Georges Theunis (Belgium), the retiring president, assailed high tariffs

as one of the fundamental causes of the depression, also deploring attempts to fix the prices of farm commodities. M. Theunis described the economic crisis as “of such depth and extent as the world had never seen before.”

He expressed a conviction that the causes of depression were relative over-capitalisation, the arbitrary and halting intervention on the part of Governments and economic nationalism.

The gold solution was far from satisfactory. “The fundamental cause of tlie unequal distribution of gold,” lie said, “lies in the uncertain political situation and in protectionist policies which prevent goods from taking the place of gold.” In the over-production of silver also, he said, lay a deepseated cause of depression.

An expert European financier and exPremier of Belgium is M. Georges Theunis. He was a delegate to the InterAllied Commission on Reparations after a career that began in the army, and reached its height in politics and international finance. Not long ago he visited the United States to discuss Belgium s debt, and, during his term of office as Belgium’s Premier, he assisted materially with a firm financial policy in the postwar reconstruction of his country. HELP FOR BELGIUM British Position Defined NO SPECIAL OBLIGATION London, May 4. In the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Henderson, said that Britain had not entered into an obligation to'land an army in Belgium in the event of war. He supposed the Belgian Minister of Defence, in. recently suggesting this, expressed his own opinion of our obligations under the Treaty of Locarno.

“Belgium will rely implicitly on the prompt aid of the British Army if her territory is re-violated,” declared the Belgium Defence Minister, M. De Broqueville, on April 29, in discussing in the Chamber of Deputies the remodelling of Belgian fortifications. He added that they must create fortified areas, under cover of which the army would be able to await British help to repulse invasion. It was not for Belgium to disarm while she was surrounded by powerful neighbours. ' Peace-loving , Belgium had been the scene of every invasion. Let the big nations disarm first. • They had nothing to fear from Belgium.