THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1933 THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21561, 4 August 1933, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1933 THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD

The time has come for the British IJmpire to review the position in which it stands to the rest of the world. To say this may seem to suggest that Great Britain and the Dominions should abandon their international outlook and sympathies. Nothing so utterly radical is necessarily meant. Indeed, the British habit of thinking in terms of the world has become so ingrained in the present generation that its complete reversal is practically impossible. To swing away from the wider outlook and sympathy to rabid nationalism would accentuate an evil that is to be deplored. But a facing of present realities raises the question whether it is any real service to the world to continue action that sets the interests of other peoples above and before our own. This loving of our neighbours better than ourselves tends to defeat the very purpose ostensibly in view. British leadership in international affairs has been ungrudgingly generous. It has been a sheet-anchor to the League of Nations, an inspiration to disarmament, the holding up of an ideal in trade. And what has come of it? Any great advance in mutual service? It has not all gone for nothing, but much of it has so tended to weaken the influence of the Empire that its beneficent leadership counts for less than it did. Is general disarmament, for instance, any nearer because British defences have been pared to the bone? Not a single nation of those represented at the last three naval conferences, beginning with Washington in 1921, has reduced its expenditure on 'Construction, equipment and personnel as a result of British sacrifice. Even such firm friends of disarmament as Mr. Mac Donald and Mr. Henderson—now quoted not because of forgetfulness of others equally enthusiastic but because of their Government's reduction policy when they were respectively Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary—have declared that a halt ought to be called in Britain's divesting herself of naval defences. How •fully true that is can be seen by looking at the refusal of France and Italy to implement the London Treaty, at the recent decision of Japan to proceed with construction, and at the news to-day of America's embarking on a plan to build 21 new warships at a cost of 238,000,000 dollars.

By precept and example, Britain has led, and the rest have failed to follow. And in commerce the same thing has happened. Fr_ee-trade England fondly hoped that open ports would multiply apace all over the world as an outcome of her abolition of tariffs. Instead, the British Isles became a dumping ground for foreign commodities, and the way to reciprocal trade with mutual profit—the only sort of trade really beneficial to the world at large—was blocked, not opened, by the policy. Lately, at the World Economic Conference, the British attitude was one of utmost readiness to co-operate. Was the attitude of others answeringly friendly? It was, in many instances; but America refused to be a party to endeavours to establish a worldwide adjustment of currency, pleading the prior importance of her domestic economic problem, and now adds to the proof of this relapse into selfish nationalism a decision, according to report from Washington, to demand the war-debt payments in gold next December and to engage in no further parleys on them until next year—and then only in the event of a return of domestic prosperity. It may be said that, because America has selfishly—and probably foolishly —thrown away more than one great opportunity to do the world a good turn, British policy should be unaffected, unless it be made still more exemplary in international outlook. But that would be to miss the counsel in the fact that America's deliberate withdrawal from co-operation vitiates the whole prospect, and throws upon other nations the necessity of looking after their own interests. It is regrettable, but it is now imperative, and British policy ought to be recast according to actualities. There can be no progress toward a better state of things without such a readjustment.

The rest of the world has become so accustomed to gain by British sacrifice that the Empire's firm stand against going further in that direction would impart a shock. If so, it should be a salutary shock. What has happened in connection with Britain's reservation at the Disarmament Conference of the right to use bombing aeroplanes in the quelling of rebellious tribesmen, as on the north-west frontier of India, is instructive. Other nations have seized on this reservation as a ground of complaint, and their protests have been mistakenly supported by some folk in England. But a calm survey of the reservation reveals its necessity, in the interests of peace and order, even in the saving of life. It is first and foremost a precaution against dangerous disturbance, as events have abundantly piioved, and it involves, on the same testimony, not tho slightest menace to foreign nations. Yet the idea of British reluctance to forgo any military precaution, even one .so demonstrably defensive, is so strange that it has been either misunderstood or used as an excuse. When the fog of controversy has cleared, the right will be conceded. So also with any necessary revision of policy in the international sphere. The Empire has so long engaged selflessly in looking after other peoples' business that a frank determination to mind its own would be surprising. Yet following that surprise would eventually come a thankfulness—for the gain others would ultimately reap from this compelled British reaction to refusal elsewhere to pool resources and efforts.