A GRAVE RESPONSIBILITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21978, 13 June 1933, Page 8

A GRAVE RESPONSIBILITY

In the hour of its inauguration the World Economic Conference assumes an impressiveness deriving less from its dimensions and representative character—though regarded in that light it is remarkable enough—than from the nature of the task to which it is about to. address itself. Such a gathering, animated .by such a purpose, stands without historical parallel, and while the accounts of the preparations against the descent upon London of the delegates from over sixty nations are interesting and in some of the details amusing, it is manifest that the atmosphere in which the Conference has assembled must be in no 'inconsiderable degree one of tension. The eyes of the world are upon it: the hopes of the world are concentrated upon it as probably never before upon any gathering of international significance. For the nations are sick, and it is to the World Economic Conference that they look for relief and cure. There may be varying expectations as to what the Conference may be able to achieve, but there will be little difference of opinion regarding the weight of the responsibility that rests upon it. And nothing seems more sure than that," should it not succeed in discovering a way to the restoration of the economic health of the nations, there will be distressful reactions. But, as The Times observes, the Conference must not be allowed to fail: it must see the world ori the way to recovery if the nations are not to lose all faith in the capacity of their statesmen. It should not be too much to hope of this great assembly of responsible statesmen that it will find sufficient inspiration to enable it to grapple to good purpose with the problems with which it has to deal. In the phraseology of the Preparatory Commission, in essence the necessary programme is one of economic disarmament : in, the movement towards economic reconciliation the armistice was signed at Lausanne, and it is for the London Conference to draw the treaty of peace. Failure in this critical undertaking threatens, the Commission has pointed out, a worldwide adoption of ideals of national self-sufficiency which cut unmistakably athwart the lines of economic development. " Such a choice would shake the whole system of international finance to its foundations; standards of living would be lowered, and the social system, as we know it, could hardly survive." The onus upon the Conference to throw out a sheet anchor that will hold against, such, a drift could scarcely be more succinctly emphasised.