THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1932 AMERICA AND THE WORLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21280, 6 September 1932, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1932 AMERICA AND THE WORLD

If the World Economic Conference should fail because of the obstacles flung in its path by the United States, upon American politicians will rest a terrible burden of guilt. The possibility of a failure so caused is tragically real. Not by mere aloofness but by mischievous dictation the American Government is deliberately bent on reducing the conference to nullity. It threatens to perpetrate the greatest "holdup"— the word is of American creation—ever recorded in human history. This threat is a breach of faith. When the Lausanne Conference approached the reparations problem it did so on the understanding, fostered by plain words spoken officially in Washington, that a solution acceptable to Europe would at least have the sympathetic consideration of the United States as a basis for reviewing war debts. "Arrange among yourselves what you wish about reparations, in which we have no direct interest," said White House ; "then we will see what we can do about the debts due to us." No positive promise was given, it is true, to abandon the American claim. Even "scaling down" was now and again mentioned with disfavour. But the nations represented at Lausanne had sufficient warrant, conveyed by unmistakable words, to hope that a workable agreement to forgo claims on Germany would lead to helpful action by the United States. They were given to understand that they could not make a concerted approach to their American creditor, yet the implication of this restriction was reasonably read as encouraging them to make individual approach, once they had dealt mercifully with Germany's indebtedness to them. The restriction amounted to a matter of procedure only; it did not traverse any principle of just dealings by one nation with another. I That "gentleman's agreement" has been violated by the attaching of a condition to the American Government's acceptance of the invitation to take part in the World Economic Conference—war debts are to be excluded from the agenda. It is so also with tariffs. In fact, nothing of any broad economic nature —nothing beyond the narrow financial limits of monetary reform—is to be discussed, if the American Government has its way. This again is a breach of faith. That Government, in its remarkable anxiety to keep clear of the supposed taint of discussion about reparations, refused to participate at Lausanne: but it said that, if Geneva were made the venue of the intended discussion of economic and financial questions—to complete the work begun with agreement about reparations—it would take part. Accordingly, the Lausanne Conference ended without completing its agenda, leaving to the World Economic Conference at Geneva, where the United States would be a full participant, these other problems. To be told afterwards that the United States insisted on tariffs being excluded from the Geneva agenda has been more than a disappointment. Unless these be considered, no solution of the monetary problem can be of great practical value. Fiscal and currency questions interlock. Concerted action in both is essential to achieve advantage from reform in either. What is the use of adjusting standards of value and rates of exchange if interchange of commodities is to be sedulously hampered by other means ? The condition named by the American Government precludes the conference from doing more than half of its work: either it must confine its attention to half its task or do that task with reference to only half the world. It would belie its name, whichever course it took: if a World Conference, it could not be Economic; if Economic, it could not be a World Conference; and in the circumstances "could hardly be a Conference at all. To this pass American dictation would bring it.

This attitude of the United States is wholly regrettable, as many Americans unhesitatingly admit. It prevents speedy application of the worldwide remedy necessary to cope with a worldwide ill. A substantial amount of progress has been made toward economic recovery—at Lausanne and Ottawa. Nothing so far done, however, can achieve full success. That waits for the World Economic Conference to accomplish as a continuation of what has been done. The truth of this, it may be presumed, is as well known in America as elsewhere. Why, then, this practical ignoring of it? Partly because of the American worship of a fetish—the non-interference and non-intervention ideals of the Monroe Doctrine, fashioned in an altogether different age and no longer appropriate to a world become geographically and commercially small. This doctrine cannot now be consistently honoured. In the commercial realm it has been ruthlessly scrapped, but for selfish purposes it is politically preserved, to international confusion and detriment. Keeping out of the League of Nations, multiplying "reservations" to membership of the World Court, and playing the "observer" at European conferences, the United States cannot fulfil a really worthy destiny. An associated reason for this hampering aloofness is the ponderous and slow political machinery that takes twelve months to re-elect or change a President, the two major parties stalking each other vaingloriously while the rest of the world is in sore need of fully international co-operation. Until a really big mind actuates their country that need will exasperatingly remain unmet,.