NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 1933. ANOTHER FORM OF WAR

Northern Advocate, 14 August 1933, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 1933. ANOTHER FORM OF WAR

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper,

The recurrence of! August 4, with its memories of all the tragedies of the Great War, inspired 1 lie press throughout the world to dilate upon another form of war the international action whieh has contributed largely to the world depression. There is a realisation that the chief nations are fighting a ruthless, trade war which is embitlcriifg all relationships. For years past the economic committee of the League of; Nations has been warning the world that the sharpening tariff wars arc leading towards another conflict in arms. The severity of the world-wide trade depression persuaded the chief nations in 1932 to listen to the latest .of these warnings from Geneva, and so the World Economic Conference was called together. It met only to fail of its purpose. Nothing is held to be more certain than that the conference must he reassembled to face its task again, if economic antagonisms, prosecuted with increasing severity, are not to burst forth again in arms. It is frequently said that the economic war is a legacy of the 1914-191 S conflict. Perhaps more strictly it is rather a perpetuation of jealousies and rivalries which have never relented. In a recent issue of “Blackwood’s Magazine” Sir John Fortesene sought to drive homo this truth. It is, he declared, ridiculous to talk about abolishing war when every nation under the sun is, with tariff and other trade restrictions, mobilising its whole strength to thwart and defeat the trading enterprise of other nations. “The periods of so-called peace in Europe—those periods when no two nations are actually in arms against each other—arc little deserving of the name. Apart from seditions propaganda, there is the disturbing influence known as tariff wars. These arise from the effort, or the presumed effort, of one nation to injure another by filching away its trade and so diminish its wealth. The suffering community retaliates, if only in self-defence, by counter-tariffs.

. . . Those may condemn tens of thousands of innocent men to lose their livelihood and perish of starvation, yet such proceedings are not. regarded technically as war.” But what is the difference? It is computed that today, as the result of the strangulation of trade under jealous national policies, there are 30,000,000 unemployed in the world. The death, loss, and suffering thus entailed are little less appalling than the casualty lists of the Great War, and the menace to civilisation is as dire and real as would be another great war in arms. At the root of the trouble is the wrong-headed notion that every people can and should live unto itself alone, should provide all its own requirements rather than purchase goods from other countries with exchanged goods. It has become common to talk of imported goods as an “invasion” of, or,an “attack” upon, the importing country, and of prohibitive tariffs as a country’s “defence.” As the writer in “Blackwood’s” says, the economic war thus waged is everywhere deliberate, but at least those who engage in it should recognise it for what it is—war, or incipient war, in spirit and motive.