THE TASK OF RESTORATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21979, 14 June 1933, Page 6

THE TASK OF RESTORATION

It was in a speech coached in plain and simple language that the King opened- the World Economic Conference on Monday. For that very reason His Majesty’s utterance gathered a directness and impressiveness befitting an occasion so noteworthy and serious. It touched in general terms only upon the problems that have brought the Conference into being and with which it has to deal. It offered no suggestion, nor could it be expected that it would offer a suggestion, concerning the possible remedies by which the worldwide difficulties that have arisen may be resolved or ameliorated. But it set forth the issues that are in the balance in a manner that must have brought home to every delegate present the extraordinary importance attaching to the consultations which it formally inaugurated. “ It is with profound emotion that I see around me,” declared His Majesty, “ this august assembly which seems so vast but represents an infinitely vaster contemplation—the hope and wishes of the entire world.” Never a world conference, it is safe to say, addressed itself to its task with an equal consciousness of occupying the centre

of the world’s stage. His Majesty might have dwelt upon the world’s troubles in moving terms. More effective in all that they implied were his words to the delegates: “ The world is in an unquiet state, and for you who from to-day begin the work of restoration the task is heavy.” It has been commented that this Conference is unique in that it was inaugurated without a single nation suggesting a vestige of policy. There is no warrant, however, for any assumption that, because no Government has promulgated beforehand its views as to the definite programme at which the Conference should aim, there is a lack of common ground upon which the world’s statesmen will be able to discuss the practical solution of the problems that have to be tackled. The delegations must recognise that, even as His Majesty emphasised, the task entrusted to them cannot be achieved except through goodwill and co-operation, and that “it cannot be beyond the power of man so to use the vast resources of the world as to ensure the material progress of civilisation.” The statesmen assembled in London have no reason to be under any illusion respecting the outlook should the results of their deliberations prove a grievous disappointment to the peoples whom they represent. Its material progress, producing a new problem, has forced upon the world, as the King pointed out in his speech, a new recognition of the interdependence of nations and the value of collaboration between them, and the hope will be widely echoed that every member of every delegation will, throughout his participation in the Conference discussions, find perpetually ringing in his ears His Majesty’s exhortation: “Now is the opportunity to harness this new consciousness of common interests to the service of mankind.” The address delivered by the Prime Minister, which followed that of the King, was matter of fact, to the point, and studiously restrained. Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s brief survey of the difficult world conditions that have come about served to* bring the Conference face to face, without more ado, with the hard realities which it is its business to consider. His condemnation of “self-sufficing, economic nationalism” was sufficiently emphatic, while in his reiterated declaration that “we must not fail” he struck a note which, it is to y be hoped, will make itself heard to effective purpose throughout the discussions in the inspiration of goodwill and determination to succeed. Mr MacDonald’s reminder of the necessity for a settlement of the war debts question was pointed, and intentionally so. While this question is not definitely on the Conference agenda, and while the Prime Minister’s reference to it seems to have surprised the representatives of the United States, it is manifest that, as he stated, it must be dealt with before every obstacle to a general .world recovery can be removed. War ! debts represent one of the contributing causes of the world’s difficulties, and it is sufficiently clear that the Conference cannot get far in the consideration of such a question, for example, as resumption of the movement of capital, without taking eognfsance of the position as regards inter-governmental indebtedness.