PROBLEMS AFTER THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 157, 29 March 1941, Page 10

PROBLEMS AFTER THE WAR

Rehabilitation Work SUGGESTIONS MADE BY MR. NIMMO While nothing must be allowed to distract attention from the successful prosecution of the war effort, that should not prevent business men from giving close attention to the likely post-war problems, said the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Mr. R. H. Nimmo, speaking at the chamber’s annual dinner last night. In Britain the task had been entrusted to a committee headed by a member of the War Cabinet The opinion and findings of this body must have important results for New Zealand and it would be helpful if the authorities could have a liaison officer in the office of the High Commissioner to keep the Ministry and the business world in New Zealand in the closest possible touch with the position at Home.

“It is difficult to see by what other means we could assess possibilities and developments that may necessitate adjustments of our own policies and practices,” said Mr. Nimmo. “Whatever difficulties may have to be faced there is hope that a general degree of agreement may be reached. I base this hope on the unanimity of decision reached by the Economic Stabilization Conference. The report of that conference showed what could be done when economic and allied problems were faced as matters distinct from political issues, and, ■whether we agree with all the findings or not, in the very unanimity of the decisions lies the hope of future agreement. Existing Foundations. “We are now waiting for the Government to implement the very distinct promise to give effect to the findings of the conference, though we realize, in fairness to the Government, that undertakings given in all good faith are sometimes incapable of execution because of rapidly changing and complex conditions brought about by the war.” The problems of rehabilitation' after the war were so vast and so involved that inevitably there was a tendency to postpone consideration. , But one thing was certain, namely, that the struetpre to be erected must be built on existing foundations, and it was for this reason that many very able men had urged that adjustments made now should be only those actually required to meet special conditions. * Sir Alfred Zimmern, of Oxford University, had said : “Tlie long-distance problem is the problem of adjusting the social and political habits and traditions of mankind to the conditions brought about by the industrial revolution. . . . The right approach to the problem is not to present men with some full-blown scheme of world unity and to seek their support for it. . . . it is to begin from the opposite end and to ask what is the smallest change in our established social and political habits and arrangements which will enable mankind to reap the benefits of the age of power, abundance and interdependence. What we need to solve our problem is not the greatest possible change but the least possible change, a change just sufficient to enable the small-scale man to enjoy the material benefits of the large-sqale world.” “It may well prove that such is the approach which should be made in this country to solve our rehabilitation problems,” said Mr. NimmdT