Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1918. THE ECONOMIC WEAPON

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 58, 5 September 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1918. THE ECONOMIC WEAPON

The memorandum on economic policy, which Lord Robert Cecil communicated to the Associated Press of America about the middle of July shows the same talent for clear and cogent exposition which distinguished his father, the late Lord Salisbury, and which still distinguishes his cousin and colleague at the Foreign Office, Mr. Balfour. Lord Robert Cecil's loyalty to the cause of Freetrade at a time when most of the Unionists were finding' salvation in Tariff Reform and Mr. Balfour found it in wobbling, gave him another qualification for speaking on the subject to, the American people, who, though as far as ever from Freetrade, share the Freetraders' distrust of the idea of an economic boycott of Germany after the war. With a sweet reasonableness, Lord Robert lays himself out to allay this uneasiness, and though he sings too small for thorough-goers of the Morning Post school, his persuasiveness ought to go far on the other side of the Atlantic. With regard to the reBolutions of the Paris Economic Conference America was of course not consulted. A neutral nation, as she then was, had no right to be consulted and no desire to be consulted regarding what was really a part of the plan of campaign of the belligerents on one side. But this necessary exclusion of one of the greatest of trading Powers from the scheme created difficulties for the parties to it, and diminished the apprehension with which it was regarded in Germany. If Germany was still to be free to trade with the United States, one of the best of the world's markets would still be open to her. At the same time, America could find some compensation for a disturbing arrangement in the fact that she might expect to attract a. large share of the German trade which, the Allies were proposing to ban. The entry of the United States into the war has radically changed the position. It has enlarged indefinitely the possibilities of a weapon of which Germany retained a wholesome dread, even when her hopes of military victory were most confident. On the other hand, it is no longer possible for the Allies to disregard the opinion of 'America, or to proceed with their policy in a way which would aggravate its weakness under the old conditions, by presenting to Germany the appearance of a divided economic front on the part of her enemies. Very skilfully does Lord Robert Cecil explain both the object and scope of the resolutions of the Paris Economic Conference under the conditions then prevailing, and the need for construing them under the light c^ those conditions, and not as though- they had only just come into being.

" VVhan they were written," he says, " wg had an alliance of eight nations, six of whom had suffered the immediato ravagea of war. . . . But whilst the essontial needs of ourselves and of tho notions which are fighting with us the battle of liberty and justice .remain' unaltered, the alliance of eight has expanded into the association of twenty-four notions of which President Wilson spoke in his recent address to the Red Cross. It is no longer a question of forming some narrow defensive alliance, but of laying down the economic principles of tho association of nations which is already in existence now, and to membership of whish we are committed."

" What are those principles to be," Lord Robert Cecil proceeds to ask, jvnd he

answers the question in some " memorable words" extracted from President Wilson's address to Congress on'the Bth January:

The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade among the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

We are thus taken from the old covenant of the Paris Conference to the new gospel of the League of Nations for the solution of the problem, and though the constitution of the League still remains in a nebulous condition, President Wilson has, as Lord Robert Cecil points out, defined the v conditions of membership with sufficient clearness for the present purpose.. If the German people "should still, after the war was over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of the world," President Wilson plainly indicated that it would be impossible to admit her to the economic privileges or any other privileges of the League. And there ,can be no doubt that in comparison with the economic privileges she regards all the others as practicably negligible. Pan-Germans and Moderates are at least in agreement on this point—that all the territory stolen from Russia, and all the rapacious exploitation of Rumania and the Ukraine, will provide. Germany with ibut a poor set-off to the exclusion from the sources of the raw materials of her industries.

To Germany. the loss of her colonies means the loss of raw materials, and the " freedom of the'seas " means free access to raw materials, An unconquered British Navy and an economic boycott by the Allies would, by depriving her of these raw materials, effectively block the revival of Gtermiany's industrial' prosperity. Thus it is that Hen- Dernburg, who even in May had no high hopes of a dictated peace, was> talking cheerfully of reducing the Allies to such a frame of mind that they would be willing to join a " League of Nations for the universal supply of a humanity destitute of raw materials." For "humanity" I'ead " Germany," and the real import of Herr De'mburg's cosmopolitan benevolence is revealed. But, as President Wilson and Lord Robert Cecil point out, Germany must be beaten and her military autocracy smashed before she can be readmitted as a decent nation to the markets of the world.