NEW INTERNATIONAL DEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23688, 21 December 1938, Page 12

NEW INTERNATIONAL DEAL

An appeal to the European leaders to take advantage of what he called the new atmosphere of understanding was made by General Smuts, Deputy Prime Minister of the South African Union, in an address at Johannesburg, He urged that the new atmosphere should be utilised to make a new diplomatic start to reach a wider settlement, including the questions of colonies and the stabilisation of world currencies, and of the part to be played by gold in such stabilisation. Lost opportunities had been largely responsible for the worsening of European conditions in recent years. The mistake should not be repeated. Some people held that the conflict between democracy and dictatorship must be an out-and-out fight, in which there could not. and should not, be peace or compromise. “But why,” asked General Smuts. “ should we of this much-tried generation be called upon to settle this ideological issue and jeopardise millions of lives, perhaps, civilisation, in another Great War? If the world reaches a new equilibrium without such a fatal cataclysm, statesmen will deserve well of the future. Let us try again to build the house of peace. If there is madness in the world,” he went on, “ give it time to wear off, but do not let it drag the world into a destructive war. At the same time, I would rebuild the League of Nations into a more effective instrument of confidence, security, and peaceful change.”