WORLD'S TROUBLES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 11

WORLD'S TROUBLES

CAUSES AND REMEDIES

CANCELLATION OF WAR

DEBTS

An address on the present economic situation of the world was given at the Rotary Club luncheon yestCTday afternoon, by M. Beranger, a business man stationed in America, who is making a world tour.

Eotariau J. T. Martin, who introduced the speaker, said that M. Beranger was a member of the Legion of Honour and a major in the Trench Army. He was a man who, having travelled a good deal, had come in contact with some of the world's leading statesmen and financiers.

M. Bcranger said that the terms world crisis and world depression did not apply to,the present situation, because the world was not going through a crisis but through a torna,do of affairs that had been determined by certain causes, due to mistakes and faults that had been created by the late political governors of the world. The economic consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, which he considered was the initial cause of the trouble to-day, were such that they had blinded the vision of the people.

Patriotism was a great factor in helping the world to carry the present burden. Idealism would also lead the world into a better state of affairs. Idealism uplifted the minds of the people, and helped them to accomplish bigger things. It was not only the uplifting of the mind and the understanding of world problems that one could come by internationalism, however.

Those who guided the destinies of the world at the time of the Treaty of Versailles were influenced by fear. The economic stability of the nations could not be determined by the brain of one man or by the brains of a committee of men.

M. Beranger said that America never understood tho plight and the position of Europe. America's conception of the situation was that the country lent money to the Allies to perform a duty, that the money was mobilised in the form of Liberty bonds, and that the Allies had to pay interest on the bonds. If that interest was not paid then it meant that tho people of America would have had to pay more taxes. Tho question whether or not the pound sterling came off the gold standard was only one of tho problems the world had to face, and the men who were hoping to guide the destinies of Britain tomorrow understood that maintaining the pound at its value was not a problem of Great Britain alone, but an international problem.

The first thing the governing element of the world should do was to cutertain openly, aud without any fear, the cancellation of reparations due by Germany, and the cancellation of international debts. "We cannot kill Germany; we must let her live, and we cannot in a manner be suicidal to ourselves by draining our resources," said M. Bcranger. "What we have to do is to protect what we have got so that tho children of to-morrow will not be saddled with the debts of to-day. Tho selfishness of nations that want to profit by a state of affairs like this is a thing of tho past. I think the League of Nations is the stepping stone to bigger things, and it may make it possible for every country in Europe to develop its natural resources aud its industrial richness."

M. Berangor gave the following as his solution to the present economic situation: the radical cancellation of reparations and inter-Allied debts, the establishment of a zollverein throughout Europe, opening up the frontiers and helping free exchange of commerce, and the reduction of armaments.