A SICK WORLD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 16000, 11 December 1922, Page 4

A SICK WORLD.

——-—• ■ »'. ■ CO-OPERATION NEEDED. AVOIDING COLLAPSE. SYDNEY, ' Nov. 2.—Thrift, elbowgrease, and co-operation are what the world needs to-day, if it is to avoid collapse. These are the things, according to Sir Henry Braddon, which may snve international finance. Sii/Henry addressed a large audience at the King's hall last evening, under the auspices of the Hemingway and Robertson Accountancy and Secretarial Education Society, and reviewed in an able and interesting,'manner the state of the nations to-day. 'After speaking of, the chaotic state of. Austrian and Russian finances, Sir Henry r -said that-trade-, sefmed'' to'bo recovering in England, • but. markets outside'.the Emph;e on which-she used to rely ;-were greatly restricted. Her Government bad ; done tho : ~almost impossible in balancing its Budget in . a most' heroic way, but there we're 1,300,000 unemployed operatives, and money was being withheld from enterprise, d, ' France had in J 921 a deficit of £944,000,000, and relied on reparation payments to put her'right. Germany had gold reserves sufficient only, to pay «n i infinitesimal portion of her debts. If she paid in kind, what was to happen to the workmen of "the countries, which the goods would.be sent? If Germany could make her reparation payments in a reasonable number of years she would need to have, excess of exports over imports to a degree that no nation in history had achieved. As France bad benefited from payment of the indemnity to Germany after the Franco-Prussian war, so Germany might have the real triumph of the war, by being compelled, to set up a huge export trade, which would be extremely difficult to combat, once the reparations had been paid. .The German note issue had become of A hopelessly irredeemable character, and some said that she should bo aljowed to declare herself bankrupt; ' but against that thero had to bo borne in mind the resources of which she would' be left in command —her labor, her soil, her plants, and her factories. There was, again, a subtle inter-con-nection of the finance of the world. If Germany and countries east of the Rhine collapsed it would be very serious for the world at large. It was certain that there, must he re-establish-ment of.' international trade, . involving a letting down of .trade .barriers, and a co-operative universal effort to avert I disaster.