THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1922. AMERICA AND EUROPE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18283, 27 December 1922, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1922. AMERICA AND EUROPE.

With every recurring effort t-o settle the many contentious questions in which are involved, on the accepted theory, the peace and future of Europe, speculative eyes are turned toward America. No solution of the problem, it is believed, will carry permanence unless it includes either the fact or the promise of participation by the United States in the task of stabilising European conditions. Officially the American policy is that which secured the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, a policy of aloofness. Avoidance of entangling alliances and of commitments abroad is the central feature. Yet while this is still the pronouncement of official Washington there are numerous signs that, public opinion is not content with unending passivity in international relations. A senator who, in 1919, was an uncompromising advocate of the policy of isolation, now favours an endeavour to re-establish Europe economically. He has come'to believe that the future peace and prosperity of the United States is contingent upon such reconstruction. Bankers, financiers, officials, and publicists have expressed similar views within recent months. There appears a tendency for many Americans to examine the situation critically with i a view to discovering how and when ; intervention may be expected to produce the best effect. Once it is generally realised as it seems ; already well realised sectionally, that international affairs and domes- ; tic problems are intimately related, | the Administration will have to pro- | duce a foreign policy. To detcr- | mine how far public opinion has I travelled in that direction is not ! easy. An American scholar, addressing a London audience a few months ago, made a plea for patience if his countrymen appeared slow to I act. Before unanimity could be reached, he explained, it was necessarv for conviction to spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific among millions of people not accustomed to deliberate upon affairs beyond their own shores. It is necessaiy, there--1 fore, to avoid assuming that because ! prominent and representative Ameri- | cans believe in action, the whole i nation favours it. Tneir doing so i may be quite properly regarded, however, as a preliminary stirring of the face of the waters. The Balfour Note on debts and reparations, addressed at, rather than to, America, has been attacked as purely evil in itself and disastrous in results. The Note has now prac-

tically disappeared from view. It has had one effect, however, which cannot be considered evil. Americans, feeling that its terms seemed to put them in the wrong, have been moved to speak in defence of their country. In making a case, they have indulged to some extent in a process of self-examination. From the terms of the discussions it is possible to discover more of the American point of view than was previously deducible. As depicted by their own publicists, the American people are slowly realising the impossibility of remaining apart and indifferent while so much of the civilised world welters in its misery. Cancellation of war debts may still be regarded as uncalled for and impossible, but interest is being quickened to a realisation that some I tangible effort must be made to set j stricken Europe on its feet again, i Much notice has been taken of the i fact that in Europe, and especially j in Britain, there is strongly expressed aversion to the idea of the debts to America being cancelled. America, however, has not yet agreed that debts and reparations are one and the same question. The disposition is to demand a j settlement by Europe of the reparations issue before debts come to be discussed. Opinion may yet develop to enable America to consider the two questions together. The movement away from isolation is, it is : claimed, as inevitable as it is slow , in its present stage. When it j gathers a little more momentum it ; will carry with it the Administration, j or sweep away that Administration ; to make room for another more j sensitive to public opinion.

The senator who has suggested an , economic conference may be ahead ! of the times, but even the terms in ' which his resolution is criticised j show a realisation that some action j must be taken. The United States ! co-operated with other Powers at the Washington Conference, and may co-operate again when the way ' is made clear. "Membership in the J League of Nations is the most obvious, but, in the general view, the least likely channel of action. The rejection of that scheme was not, it is now apparent, the result of a mere revulsion against the policy of Mr. Wilson. It was dictated by j a real belief, sedulously cultivated, | that membership would commit the i nation to participation in war with- 1 out the constitutional procedure | being followed. So long as that j belief is held, so long as any doubt on that score remains, America is not likely to join the League. At the same time, there exists in the country a strong sentiment in favour of common action with other nations in the direction of assuring future | peace. All deductions from con- i sidered discussions of what America j thinks and believes favour the view that the ideals cherished by the people there are not fundamentally different from those animating lovers of peace and progress elsewhere in the world. Lack of understanding has acted obstructively on both sides. In America generations had accepted, as the first article of faith, that the nation must hold aloof from the affairs of Europe. This habit of mind was not easily discarded. In Europe it was thought that complacence in the midst of prosperity had produced indifference to suffering abroad. These misunderstandings appear now to be passing away, so that the future may yet see the barriers broken down and the mighty power of the American nation exerted in the cause of reconstructing the badly shattered social and economic systems of Europe.