The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1937. “Little Attempted, Nothing Done”

Southland Times, Issue 23229, 18 June 1937, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1937. “Little Attempted, Nothing Done”

Now that the final speeches have been made at the Imperial Conference and the delegates have announced their satisfaction with achievements which are not yet perceptible to the outside world, it becomes necessary to consider the meanings of failure. For there can be no doubt that the conference has failed lamentably at a time when success, measured in the terms of positive contributions to Empire policy, has been more badly needed than at any other time since the war. It is quite true, as Mr Savage said, that talks of this kind permit those personal contacts and frank discussions which can never be replaced by correspondence, especially of the official kind. But these are secondary values. It is no use hearing the truth about the European situation if "nothing is to be done about it. Everybody understands that it is difficult to do anything except cultivate preparedness; and Britain’s armaments programme is sufficient evidence that some of the warnings have been heeded. But it does not seem to be generally realized that the present situation is not to be changed by a piling up of armaments. Europe has already had its taste of the new tactic of fascist aggression. Under cover of a barefaced diplomacy —which, nevertheless, has a certain subtlety of the “keep them guessing” kind—Germany and Italy have made one move after another. Their troops and aeroplanes are in Spain; at the present time there is every chance that the tragedy of Guernica will be repeated on a larger scale in Bilbao; and although the talk is of stalemate it is not to be denied that the Fascists have a grip on the peninsula. AU this is universally known. It is assumed that both sides will ultimately grow weary, and that the war will end on a note of exhaustion. But in the meantime the balance of power has been altered in the Mediterranean. The gloomier prophets—who may none the less be the clear-sighted ones —are afraid that what has happened in Spain may one day happen in Czechoslovakia. There is no declaration of war; but while the democracies hold fast to the letter of international law the authoritarian states are quietly entrenching themselves and preparing for further advances. It was not to be expected, of course, that the Prime Ministers would succeed, with collective wisdom, in solving problems that have been too much for first-class political minds in Britain. But they have had an opportunity for constructive action, and have refused to take it. An AngloAmerican alliance, even if it is confined to trade treaties, would constitute a background for future understanding. There are difficulties. Big business in Britain has hinted that Imperial preferences must not be endangered by “illusory projects for the revival of economic internationalism.” And in the United States the manufacturers have been thinking of possible losses resulting from concessions on British manufactured goods. Canada has worries of the same kind. South Africa is preoccupied with her dream of national independence; and New Zealand—at least as far as she can be represented in these matters by her Prime Minister —has announced her unalterable faith in a League of Nations which has shown itself powerless to control a European trouble of any but the most trivial kind. This is an “as you were” policy curiously in contrast with Labour’s reforming zeal at home. But whatever the reason may be for New Zealand’s weakness in foreign affairs, the fact remains that she is aligned with the other Dominions in full-hearted agreement on a policy that Mr G. D. H. Cole would describe as “ostrichism.” An Anglo-American treaty would have rrleant difficulties for everybody concerned; it might have been wrecked, ultimately, by the impersonal selfishness of business interests in Britain and America. But at least it would have started something; and—most important of all—it would have given concrete proof to the rest of the world that the AngloSaxon peoples ,were aware of their potentialities to be the supreme authority in world affairs. The position now is that the Dominions have agreed that defence is necessary, but that there must be no commitments. Canada and South Africa are prepared to continue accepting the benefits of Empire, but have reserved the right to keep out of European disputes in which Britain may become entangled. This right is clearly laid down in the Statute of Westminster; but the two Dominions seem to have gone out of their way to emphasize a possible future neutrality. Their political representatives have been shown facts about the European situation which needed no ornamentation to make them deeply serious. Their

pusillanimity, in . face of these facts, may yet prove their own undoing, for they have failed to understand the loyalties of blood and spirit which unite their peoples in a time of danger. A line of action, based on a defined policy in foreign affairs, would have made a tangible warning that might have been heeded by the aggressive states. This warning has not been given. In speeches which used many words to say nothing, the delegates said farewell to a wrecked conference. Not even the bold, but not impossible, suggestion for a Pacific Pact survived.