OPEN DOOR FOR PEACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23866, 21 July 1939, Page 4

OPEN DOOR FOR PEACE

Mr Ernest Bevxn’s contribution to the British Labour Party’s Conference raises his political stature (says the Spectator). If, he holds, the tardy but powerful Peace Front is to yield more than a temporary respite from panic it must prosecute more than the essentially negative business of defence. Collective security must go together with collective economic advance, and both must be open to all, particularly to Germany. Mr Bevin reiterated the view, voiced strongly but vainly by economists seven years ago, that the exclusive Ottawa policy bears more responsibility for the world’s present plight than any other factor. Equal access to raw materials is a mockery without. equal access to markets—not only, be it added, colonial markets; trade may be multilateral. This consideration lends ad-, ditional point to Mr Bevin’s plea for agreements not merely colonial or European in scope, but including the United States and the dominions.