POST-WAR POLICY

Southland Times, Issue 17851, 5 August 1918, Page 5

POST-WAR POLICY

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE. (By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, August 2. In the House of Commons Mr Bonar Law. replying to Mr Walter Runciman, said the United Kingdom and the Dominions must settle their fiscal policies independently. He had pointed out that the British Government put itself in line with the Dominions by deciding to give preference on articles now dutiable or dutiable in future. The Imperial Conference accepted the principle of preference in 1917 and had discussed the Empire’s general economic policy many times this year. Mr A. J. Balfour said there was a unanimous desire to create machinery to spare future generations the horrors of war. Germany to-day was using the economic weapon against subject nations in such a manner as to sow the seeds for future wars. He was prepared to vehemently preach the doctrine of a league of nations. The German people had not yet arrived at the attitude of abhorring the miseries and brutalities of war. They were not yet genuinely looking forward to the time when armies would be disbanded and nations would be living in freedom and amity. A repetition of the world catastrophe would leave civilisation in bankruptcy. Believers in a league of nations must warmly advocate pressing the war to a victorious conclusion. Any weakening of our aims would be a crime against national pride and the principles of general peace wherefor we were fighting.