THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1932 THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21378, 30 December 1932, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1932 THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR

As this year nears its end, the hope with which its predecessor bade farewell is brought forcibly to mind. It was a hope that the incoming twelve months would see at least the beginning of better tinl&s for all the world. The wish was father to the thought—a relationship quite proper, of course, by all the laws that govern such things—and the originating impulse has kept close and inspiring touch with its intellectual offspring; but expectation of economic prosperity has been dogged by a growing realisation that progress cannot escape setbacks. Yet, if a less buoyant frame of mind to-day greets the facts, hope of gradual and eventually full recovery is not a whit less strong than"'it was. The world has settled into a calmer survey of the factors of the problem, and this alone is a gain worth noting. In 1931 there was more than a risk of panic. That unnerving -experience was poignantly real, particularly so after the Wall Street crash that shook the confidence of the United States and spread a deepening concern among all civilised peoples. American comment holds that period to have been a year of despair, with perhaps too self-centred a judgment, yet with a high degree oE truth. But, as 1932 dawned, there were signs of a brightening day. One thing above others stood out in the prospect, as a deduction from the spread of calamity. If nations were so manifestly interdependent that even the most apparently vigorous could not evade the incidence of ill, why should they not combine to overcome it? The trouble at last was worldwide; then only in worldwide effort to stay and stop it could a real remedy be applied. On the basis of that truth, taught by bitter experience, an endeavour was made to cope with the disaster, and before the year ended it was more or less explicitly agreed that in the pooling of mental if not material resources was a promise of relief.

What of the keeping of this .mutual pledge 'I The story of international co-operation that this year has written is one of mingled success and failure. It begins with an effort, on an unprecedented scale, to deal with the problem of disarmament as related to peace and therefore to the spread of universal prosperity. Never before had all the agencies of war —at sea, on land and in the air—been the subject of conference ; never before had all the nations been leagued in a practical scrutiny of the vexing subject. The ideal was splendid; painstaking preparation of data and a draft convention had been long in hand; and early in February all roads led to Geneva, where the international tryst was to be kept. The outcome, however, has been disappointing, maybe because the determination to be done with war has wilted a little at the breath of national distrusts, maybe -because the problem is more difficult than it was thought to be. So the expected six months of effective discussion have lengthened into nearly double the period deemed long enough, and the stream of talk has spread wide and shallow, until it is in danger of stranding the ideal in a desert of negation. The issue was brought to a crisis by Germany's refusal to collaborate longer unless the undertakings of the Treaty of Versailles, ' including the League Covenant, and of the Pact of Paris, were honoured in a way giving her equality of status, in rearmament if not disarmament. Ha.ppily, the challenge has been seen for what it means, and diplomacy has prevailed to save the conference from fiasco. Whether it will ultimately achieve its declared purpose is far from certain, but a more serious mind —on all aspects, not merely the economic —should now confront the question. In one other critical issue Germany has been central, that of reparations. The tale of Lausanne is more heartening than that of Geneva, for it includes a veritable triumph of common sense. An end was put, tentatively, to the burden that, borne with staggering difficulty by Germany, threatened to fall crushingly across Europe; and a new pact of Western co-operation was fashioned. Had this European achievement evoked a sympathetic response in. the United States, so that war debts might have been lightened all round, all would have gone well in this critical business. Instead, for reasons that can be understood but not applauded, full success halts. It will tarry until America decides to be in the world as well as of it. What, might have been an annus mirabilis in international affairs has been robbed of this particular splendour in a way not easily forgiven. The League of Natioas, too, still without its maximum efficiency because of America's aloofriess, has been sorely beset by the strife between China and Japan, and faces yet its most exacting task. Of the outlook in that direction none can do more than hope that restraint may prove a prelude to reconciliation. There is unrest elsewhere, as in South America, where quarrels habitually lurk at frontiers, but the Sino- Japanese affray is especially fraught with dire threats for the world. The threads of international friendship wear perilously thin in places; even in Europe they are under strain, and much depends on the attitude of the new Government,) in France and Germany, while Spain is hindered from cooperation by the troublesome aftermath of revolution, Russia by disinclination and an absorption in domestic tangles, and the countries of central and eastern Europe by seveie economic stress. Britain, stalwart and poiseful as ever under trial, has ready hands for peacemaking. The honours of the international year, such as they are, lie with her leaders and her people. It is much that the spirit of friendship so largely survives, and that the loads of co-operative intercourse are almost everywhere open, ali though the way of formal conference i has proved somewhat illusory.