The Evening post INTERDEPENDENCE AS A GLOBAL POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 55, 3 September 1945, Page 4

The Evening post

INTERDEPENDENCE AS A GLOBAL POLICY

Now that the war drums beat no longer, the earth has become definitely a place where lions and lambs must collaborate, being necessary to each other. Even in wartime this collaboration was sensed if not seen. It took nearly six years of war to reduce the German tiger to a lamb-like condition, but all the time it was realised that Germany would not—could not —be destroyed. Always Germany could find sanctuary by becoming a lamb, which in this year of grace Germany belatedly did, and thereby impressed so deeply her ally Japan that Japan too became a lamb, and much more expeditiously than Germany. The human family is such that not one lamb —so long as it is lamb-like—can be absolutely and finally sacrificed, although it is true that the Nazis did make a determined attempt to obliterate the Jews; and it is fortunate that the intervention of other nations spoked the Nazi wheel in time to interrupt what appears to have been a whole-hearted attempt at race annihilation. But even if the German war against the Jews had destroyed seven-eighths of them instead of about half, that performance would have stood in history as the exception that proves a rule, the said rule being the persistent survival of lambs, for the reason that lambs are necessary. The habits and'diseases of civilisation may destroy a primitive race—in the spirit of the Last of the Mohicans —but war in itself no longer ends in willed extermination. This fact is well understood both in Germany and in Japan, perhaps better in Japan. There is a realisation that, in defeat, it is necessary to be lamb-like. Submission buys not only survival; it buys help. And submission does not finally negate the possibility that the lamb may yet grow and develop tiger stripes, and a carnal appetite. In Germany that has been proved by demonstration. But there are lambs and lambs. Beside the former enemy lambs, there are neutral lambs of various kinds, ranging from Sweden to Spain,. and there are ally lambs. In principle, the ally lambs challenged the ally lions 'at San Francisco. The ally lions, appearing at San Francisco under the name of veto Powers, did not claim any right to take action against smaller States, but claimed the individual right to refuse, in specific cases, to take action at all; This attitude, negative rather than positive, has nothing to do with the predatory instinct that i^s attributed to lions, and —in the case of Germany and Japan —attributed correctly. What happened at San Francisco is that the five veto Powers, by creating for each of them the right to contract itself out of forceful action, reinsured what each of them regards as his own security. However much the individual vetoes on combined forceful action may be criticised, it can at least be said that the position of lambs in the international world is vastly better than it was when Germany, Italy, and Japan were bearing aloft the victorious banners ,of unapologetic and unashamed aggression. The lambs now at least have the assurance —notwithstanding veto limitations—that they are deemed necessary to the existence of a peaceful, as distinct from a warwaging, world. The Security Council at present cannot issue to smaller States policies insuring against all risks. But the new International Organisation, taken in its entirety, aims hopefully at a world which must be resigned to the continued existence of lions and lambs—a world of inequality but not necessarily of inequity or iniquity, a world in which even Germans and Japanese may yet become collaborators in the best sense. In finance, too, there are lions and lambs. There are some . pretty big lambs and some very small ones. Some former financial sheep have shrunk to lamb-like proportions, but with distinct hopes of recovery. That .is to say, some States have crossed the line from a creditor status to a debtor status; and some former debtors are now creditor States. But, even for the new debtors, this change is npt as bad as it looks. Just as lambs and lions are necessary .to the balance of Nature, so are debtors and creditors necessary to the economic balance: and even the slightest examination of the financial system will show that the creditor instinct can be protective as well as destructive—in fact, the debtor may even be on the box seat. This happens in a time of excessive inflation, which every wise creditor — also every really wise debtor—seeks to avoid. In the international sphere, therefore, creditor States and debtor States have far more common interests than opposed interests. Unless affairs have drifted hopelessly, a creditor must support his debtor; and both have an interest in preventing drift. It is not to be assumed, therefore, that this creditor-debtor cooperation has vanished because Washington, through the expiry of a statute, now resumes a power of veto over the giving of financial' help, as well as enjoying, v/ith others, the San Francisco veto over military action. Legalists say that this American resumption of financial discretion was brought about overnight by Japan when, in one stroke, she ended the war and lend-lease also, with her mind on her own purposes and not on international repercussions. Making a fresh start from an accomplished fact brought about by an enemy, the United States Government now says— through its Secretary of State, Mr. Byrnes—that "formal settlements must now be worked out with foreign Governments." The loose ends of lendlease, where severed, must be retied by agreement. There seems to-be nothing to prevent the threads of creditor-debtor relationship being readjusted so as to restore financial co-operation between the United States and European debtors, including Britain. President Truman's assurance that this co-operation will continue rests not only on mutual self-interest but on sentiment founded upon service. The President's "wise and generous statement" stars Britain's tremendous lone fight in 1940-41, and America's colossal expenditure of blood and treasure since then. Both nations have given in a superlative sense. Gratitude and also mutual interest bind America and Britain (lion of liberty, if not of finance) in enduring co-operation. ' The most important thing is not that the Big Five can, at will, refuse to sanction force. The most important

WELLINGTON, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1945.

thing is not that a creditor can, if he wishes, embarrass a debtor. The most important thing in the world today is that the strong, while refusing to be fettered, continue to help, and that the weak retain sufficient strength (in terms of world economy) to feel sure of their position. On the latter half of this equation, as much as on the first half, depends the confidence that is essential to world recovery. Internationalists know —even isolationists now admit—that the world cannot recover by halves. Unless that principle is fully understood, the new International Organisation will fail, and America's seventy thousand million pounds will have been spent in vain. Surely such folly is unthinkable.