BRITAIN AND AMERICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21401, 27 January 1933, Page 8

BRITAIN AND AMERICA

There is full warrant for the reservation attached to Britain's acceptance of the American invitation to dicuss war debts. The invitation was hedged about with unreasonable and ungenerous conditions, and Britain would have been disloyal to her associates in the Lausanne agreement had she made no protest. It should be remembered that the British Government, after the American fiat that debtors could only be heard separately, asked for a discussion of her own debt. Thereupon Mr. Hoover and Mr. Roosevelt agreed to send the invitation, but this has been associated with an intimation that debtors' delegates must be prepared to accept American dictation as to what questions shall be considered by the World Economic Conference. This dictation is preposterous. To yield to it would be to hand the conference over to America at its start and shackle the delegates of every other nation. It is dnly fair, unless the conference is to be a sham, a mere registering of America's will, that all the nations to be represented should have a voice in determining what is to be considered. The British insistence on this is an assertion of rational liberty. On America's part, the obvious aim is to prevent discussion of reparations, even in a remote way, a restriction that would make the discussion of war debts unreal and hamper consideration of other questions. Unless the conference can meet with free hands, it might just as well not meet at all. The world's economic plight cannot be overcome without fully international study of all causes, and to foreclose debate on any is to destroy the value of consideration of the rest. It is now complained in the United States that Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Leeds x advanced no new arguments. That is not a material criticism, for the arguments now becoming old stand until they are answered by America. But this determination to manacle and gag the debtors' delegates to Washington, and to do the same with the nonAmerican membership of the Economic Conference, manifests an American reluctance to listen to any arguments, old or new. Possibly even the dignified protest of Britain will be treated with lofty scorn.