DEMOCRACY’S ANSWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 153, 31 May 1941, Page 6

DEMOCRACY’S ANSWER.

Tile British Foreign Ministei , (Mr Anthony Eden ) has giver r democracy’s answer to Hitler’s vaunted and empty plan ior a “new order.’’ It bears the mark of British and American liberal- ’ ism. As the London Daily Aia.il has aptly suggested, it is the “Ano'lo-American New Deal foi the post-war world.” Like President ltoosevelt’s New Deal plan for America, it is “the programme of the reconstructed individualist ... a man who knows that the production and distribution of the necessities of life must be planned and regulated so that a minimum standard of living can be attained by all.” That, broadly, is the keynote of this Democratic plan for the world—that it shall enjoy once more, and to a larger extent than hitherto, freely-moving commerce, a development of the exchange of goods and services, and social security. In the period immediately following the war there will be a responsibility on the British DoI minions and other simi laxlyendowed countries to restore iin- ; poverished Europe to physical j and economic health —merely one I respect in which the Nazi scheme is surpassed—and ultimately in a system of free economic co-oper-ation Germany among others ! must play her part. But she must be a member of the community of nations building the new world, not the worst master Europe has even known. “She must never again be in the position to play that role.” But lest the charge be j levelled that the mistakes of the j interregnum between the two I world wars are likely to be re- | peated in a vindictive atmosphere, Mr Eden declares that in every country without exe'eption economic health must be restored ami maintained. And that is the crux of the situation. The Woild Economic Conference of 1927 was declared a success but, it has been bitterly observed, not one of its I resolutions was heeded by any I Government. As far as it is ! humanly possible that must not i happen again. Both Britain and | the United States have declared before the world that they will I not permit the Nazi shape of I things to come. Now, while the ! struggle against oppression con- ! tinues, is the time to formulate the plans of the real new order.