NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23614, 26 March 1940, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

RUMANIA'S DUAL POLICY Rumania's position in Smith-East Europe is by far the most hazardous, writes Mr. J. L. Garvin. She alone has to reckon witli the possibilities of combined German and Russian attack. For either of these aggressions would start the other. To be plain, what Rumania fears is destruction before the Allies and Turkey could come in .sufficient strength to her aid. Because King Carol, in these stark circumstances, pursues a supple dualism he should not lie crudely accused of playing a double game. On the one hand he will make considerable economic concessions to Germany if by this, as Berlin insists, he can gain a Nazi guarantee against a Hungarian attack on Transylvania and a Russian attack on Bessarabia. A NEW SOCIAL DISCIPLINE "We British have to recover the moral initiative in Kurope. It used to be ours; it is ours no longer," declared Mr. J. Middloton Murry in a recent broadcast. "Big brave Utopian words cut no ice at all in this hard-boiled Europe of to-day. Nothing less is required of us as a nation than the capacity to give Kurope an example of n new social discipline —a social discipline, not n military one; and of the new religious philosophy by which alone such an ell'ort, can hi 1 inspired. In concrete terms, can we establish a peace-collectivism which respects the individual person? Can we dissociate liberties that are pernicious to the community from liberties that are vital to the person?" GERMAN RULERS AND PEOPLE

It is difficult to understand the satisfaotion which some people foe! in announcing that British animosity is not directed against, the German people but only against Hitler and his henchmen in Berlin, says the Marquess of Crewe, writing in the Sunday Times. Taken in one sense, the statement is a platitude, in another it is an untruth, and both things are better left unsaid. Nobody, of course, thinks hardly of every individual German. Many middleaged people recall with affection and respect the Germans, excellent teachers and loyal friends, in their households; and many others, with some of the younger generation, have pleasant memories of months of education in a German town. And the Germany of folksongs and Christmas trees and ".Mandelkuchen" lias everybody's sympathy. The same is true of every war; even in the fiercest of all, the wars of religion, there must have been Catholics and Reformers who felt kindly toward each other. On the other hand, the intense aversion awakened in British hearts is by no means confined to the junta at Berlin. What of the Gestapo? And the ruffians who rage in the concentration camps? Many people here would be pleased to hear of their individual extermination; and they exist in thousands, as much German as the makers of almond cakes.

AMERICAN GOLD HOARD > No question is more disturbing to Wall Street bankers or Washington economists than that of America's gold hoard, writes an American journalist, Mr. Neal A. Stanford. To put it bluntly, the country lias too much gold. Gold is threatening to clog the nation's economy. Uncle Sam has over 60 per cent of the world's gold supply, and is daily acquiring more. There is a gold glut in America. But —what to do? There are plenty of suggestions. There aro even more discussions —many of which are completely out of reach of the layman's comprehension. But as for a single answer which can be counted on to dissolve the dilemma —that is still missing. Perhaps the main reason why one cannot find a cleft r, precise, yet simple, solution to America's gold problem is that gold is not a problem by itself. Gold is only part of a vastly greater, much more involved and extremely delicate problem. Perhaps one should say "problems." For what is done about gold may disastrously disturb other aspects of the American economy. It might create more problems than it would solve. Suppose the United States wero suddenly to stop taking gold from the rest of the world. What does the world get for this gold? Goods and services—automobiles, radios, wheat, munitions. Production of those things means industrial activity in the United States. It means more employment, less relief, in America. America could hardly |K>rsuado itself to stop taking gold it to do so meant a business recession. Of course, she could take goods and services in return. But American manufacturers do not want competition from foreign wares. American fanners do not want competition from foreign products. So America continues to produce for foreign markets — and take gold in return. DEFEATING INFLATION

"A matter of vital importance is the problem of rising prices and the consequent demands for increased buying power with which to meet them. These two tendencies are apt, if unchecked, to chase each other, one by the lift and the other by the stairs, on an everascending scale," said Lord Walslington, chairman of Lloyds Bank, addressing the annual meeting of shareholders in London. "The problem is really a very simple one, although the solution is more complicated. If commodities for general consumption are short, either because they are being produced for purposes of the war, or because of I lie difficulty of importing them due to the delays in transport or the difficulties of paying for them, and if, on the other hand, there is growing competition in bidding for tliem, prices are bound to rise, while if the means with which to buy them are then increased, prices Avill inevitably rise higher still and the increased wages will prove to be of no avail. A man is no better off even though his nominal income is doubled if the result is that prices are doubled also. The suggested remedies to counteract this dangerous tendency, and to control prices, are fourfold. A high level of taxation all round, which would curtail the possibility of excessive purchases; rationing, which would have the same effect; the payment of wages partly in cash and partly in a. form of deferred loan certificates; or the voluntary abstention from buying those things which are scarce or which have to he bought from abroad and therefore put a strain on Britain's exchange position. The last remedy is tlie only one in which the private individual can take the initiative, and lie is definitely asked to do so in the interests of the country and to lend what ho saves by so doing to the Government."