THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1932. “RECOVERY.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21668, 11 June 1932, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1932. “RECOVERY.”

Just at the hour when all seems so dark comes a book called “ Recovery,” by Sir Arthur Salter. The Disarmament Conference drags itself wearily and despairingly through technical details; Hindenburg makes one last desperate throw which intensifies the uncertainty in Europe; the Danubian failure forbodes ill for the Lausanne Conference; elections in many a country confuse the important issues with local personalities and transitory futilities. Where men and women are not drugging themselves into forgetfulness with amusements, they seem to be turning to patent medicijie cures and political pills that ignore the fundamental problems in humanity’s diseases. In these days of doubt and fear, Sir Arthur Salter matches depression with the trumpeting of “ Recovery.” Out of the wealth of his experience as administrator in the British civil service apd the League of Nations’ Secretariat, and in the calm of his retirement from the League, he gives the world his thoughts, which are so full of hope because they seem so reasonable, so convincing, and yet so tinged with warning. He tells us the best and the worst. He does not promise a simple and complete solution. He takes into consideration the present condition of national polity and the complexity of the j world economy. Not complete disarmament but gradual and agreed reductions; not a world State but world agreement on immediate steps; not universal -Freetrade but gradual and mutual lowering of tariffs and the removal of restrictions on international trade; not even cancellation of war debts and reparations but only a scaling down of international indebtedness —these are the first steps that moderate and enlightened opinion in all countries would accept, and that would ease immediately the. desperate situation. Here is a road of compromise and a road of recovery, if only we bestir ourselves and look at this depression, not as an earthquake or a flood, but as manmade and capable of correction by man. New Zealand may be able to do little to hasten improvement, but our outlook may be brightened when we know that there are men like Sir Arthur Salter .influencing public opinion in the centres that can bring public prosperity. We,are not wandering compass-less in a fog; there are searchlights keeping us from the rocks, if only we lift our heads from our hands, and follow where they lead. “ The last and greatest problem of the world, at once urgent and permanent,” writes Sir Arthur, “is that of establishing the basis of peace and of confidence in good international relations, 'without which all efforts to revive world finance or trade must always be doomed to failure. And in the immediate future this means ensuring the success of the Disarmament Conference, improving relations between Prance and Germany, and strengthening the peace structure by making it clear that the Covenant of the League and the Pact of Paris will be operative and will be adequately supported . . . make it clear by declaration and by act —in China for instance, where the whole collective system of assurance against war is now being tested —and the world will at last have the foundations on which it can rebuild its civilisation, and rebuild it securely.” It was said that Sir Arthur resigned from the League Secretariat in disillusionment. However much disappointment there may be in this book, there are immediately practicable proposals which the great nations could take and which would assist recovery, just as there is the deeper thought that permanent prosperity demands that we think internationally. World trade is coming to a standstill. We are rapidly approaching the point when the world trade may be not much more than what it was before the industrial revolution, confined to the exchange of those products which cannot be dispensed with or made at home.

But as we get near there, we' shall at least get nearer the point at which the world will have the chance of redressing its policy and the world itself will, however slowly, be taking an upward turn. Then we shall have an opportunity to build again on better lines. Sir Arthur Salter has been called upon to direct or advise almost every Government from Austria to China. How little his advice in the past .may have been taken matters little beside his faith in the possibility of saving, even yet, those countries that are shivering in economic distress. If he concluded that only a fundamental and complete revolution of our economic system could restore prosperity, then would the outlook be very dark indeed. As, however, Sir Arthur is able to show the improvement that would follow from the amendments and the changes which men of goodwill everywhere desire, he restores our confidence and our hopes. The immediate need is to restart the flow of capital money from one country to another. Sir Arthur exposes the waste and corruption of the lending and borrowing of the period 1924-28. He challenges denial of the assertion that, with the exception -of those of the League of Nations and the Central Banks, the bulk of the foreign loans issjied in 1926-28 to public authorities in debtor countries “ would better not have been made.” He believes that Governments must bear the burden of risk by organising and guaranteeing the flow of capital. He wants to extend the principle of planning industrial development, nationally and internationally, beginning with those measures which the world is ready to accept, by the steady and organised transfer of the control of industry and finance to semi-public bodies acting under Government authority but from which the spur and freedom of private initiative have not been entirely eliminated. But he does not fail to distinguish between the immediate measures, such as the scaling down of debts, and this view of the long range changes in industry. So we shall hope. We" shall be constructively patient - and intelligently optimistic, for a great future is before us. “In our lifetime, science has given greater power over nature than in all recorded history, and now, for the first time, we have resources, we have , the industrial skill, to afford to every, man of the world’s teeming population material comfort, adequate leisure and, indeed, beyond that an excess of riches, a heritage of civilisation, of everything of which he has ordinarily capacity to enjoy. We need for this only better organisation and a regulative wisdom, and for that we need courage in action and magnanimity in outlook.”