PEACE AND TRADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23284, 1 March 1939, Page 10

PEACE AND TRADE

Amplifying what he had said earlier about the prospects of a new world conference on peace and disarmament, Mr. Chamberlain has stated that the Government believes permanent peace could be secured only by a settlement which included limitation of armaments and the removal of barriers to international trade. Of the two, it is difficult to say which is less likely of achievement in the world to-day. The nations in the key positions seem as immovably set on the policy of a closed economy as they are on the determination to arm at a feverish pace. Yet the view Mr. Chamberlain endorses has a real historic interest. Ic goes back to the days when Cobden and Bright were carrying on the fight for abolition of the corn laws, and eventually for the establishment of free trade. As an estimate of Cobden's work puts it: "Throughout the whole campaign Cobden linked up the question of free trade with that of peace and disarmament. He regarded the liberation of commerce as a key to international solidarity." When the evangel of Cobden won the day in Great Britain, it disappointed the larger hopes of its advocates. Free trade, when adopted by Britain, did not sweep the world as they had expected. Consequently its influence as a peace-maker could not work. The present day may be taken as illustrating the inverse side of the Cobden theory. The rigid artificial barriers being placed on the flow of trade are part of a policy which works against international appeasement, Mr. Chamberlain's view commands assent, though it does not encourage optimism about its chances of success.