THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1930. THE WORLD IN 1930.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20759, 30 December 1930, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1930. THE WORLD IN 1930.

The year 1930, now almost at an end, must be regarded in retrospect with mixed feelings. It has not been a happy year. Since no glossing over of the facts can make it different, those facts are best admitted at the outset. The whole civilised world has been in the grip of economic depression, which it seems no more able to avoid in these days of elaborate organisation, speedy communication and highlydeveloped mechanical aids to human effort than it was in,more primitive periods. Each country has seemed at times to be regarding its own conditions exclusively, to be looking for causes and remedies within its own borders. That circumstance has led to various movements typified by the fall of a Government in Canada, and the outbreak of a revolution in a South American Republic. Each was an example of a community, roused by the pinch of hard times, visiting its resentment on the nearest available object. .In both countries the immediate conditions were part of a world-wide movement, the causes and cure of which have evaded the grasp of the most highly-trained minds brought to bear on the problem. That might seem the most ominous feature of the present outlook. Actually, it is not so. If there is no living man to-day so acute in his perceptions as to be able to predict the turn of affairs it need not mean tha't the change is hopelessly distant, merely that human vision is short. It has happened before that when the prospect seemed worst, some wholly unexpected turn of fate has brought the dawn of a new and brighter day. That, coupled with the inexhaustible power of humanity to adapt itself to circumstances, is the justification for refusing to regard the future with despair.

In common with the rest of the world, the British Empire has had its share of stressful days in 1930. -The weight of depression has fallen most heavily on Great Britain and on Australia. The difficulties of Britain have naturally reacted on other parts of the Empire which are in fairly close economic relations with her. Canada, for example, and New Zealand, seeking an outlet for such products as wheat and dairy produce, have found that Britain offered a market for their surplus only at much lower prices than those ruling for many years past. These two countries, therefore, though interested chiefly in essential foodstuffs, have had to consider adapting themselves to altered financial circumstances. In Australia similar difficulties have been aggravated by the methods of public and private finance followed, methods based on an optimism that simply could not see a country with such great natural resources suffering a setback. This view meant ignoring the lessons of the past, for with all her great resources Australia has suffered setbacks before—and has recovered from them. That fact last-mentioned is the one to keep resolutely in mind in assessing the features of the Australian emergency. When tlie component parts of the self-governing Empire met at this year's Imperial Conference the economic side of Empire relations was generally held to be most important. If few positive results were achieved, the delegates were resolute in their insistence that the way was completely open for a more intensive discussion of the same problem at Ottawa during the coming year. The other Empire event of first importance, the India Round Table Conference, still awaits completion. General interest in Indian affairs has been notably stimulated by the epoch-making Simon report, and the proceedings of the conference are being keenly followed. Apart from these events, public affairs have been notable for the continued fall of Governments, the elections in Canada and New South Wales providing dramatic instances. As was perhaps inevitable, life has not been completely tranquil for the Empire.

At the beginning of 1930 the forthcoming London conference for the limitation of naval armaments was the chief international event in prospect. The gathering met, deliberated and ended without the chief objective, a definite formula for cruiser strengths, being achieved. A narrower limitation of naval strengths than that established at Washington was agreed upon, but t¥ie conference and its results were robbed of much value by the abstention of France and Italy. The nature of the pact and its effects cannot now be discussed in detail. It is enough to say that though the three greatest naval Powers of the world did conclude a further mutual agreement to limit their sea strength, less was effected than had been hoped. The great world as a whole has exhibited movements and changes largely contingent on conditions already discussed. One of the outstanding events has been the fall of difficult times, accompanied by severe unemployment, on that industrial and financial colossus the United States. South America has suffered a series of revolutions frankly attributed to economic causes. The continent of Europe has not contributed many outstanding events to the chronicles of the year. An election in Germany saw a turn of public favour to a party professing nationalist sentiment in its most aggressive form, but as yet thcit event has not produced, any startling effects on public or foreign policy. The last of the occupying troops left there since the war withdrew from German soil during the year, an event that can be accepted as of greater symbolic than practical significance. Russia and China, the two great enigmas of the times, showed no signs of supplying the answer to the riddle they present to the world. In such spheres of human activity as aviation there has been much attempted, and a fair sum of achievement. One of its great

tragedies occurred - when a British airship, just started on a pioneering flight to India, crashed to the earth in flames, carrying to destruction almost all its complement of passengers and crew. It was an appalling disaster, by which all the world was moved. All told, 1930 has been a stressful year. If, as it ends, the future is not yet clear, there is the hopeful thought that the world h as weathered worse storms with far slenderer resources than those modern enterprise and inventiveness have placed at its command at the close of the first third of the twentieth century.