COUNCIL OF THE NATIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 18 June 1932, Page 5

COUNCIL OF THE NATIONS

SOLUTION TO WORLD CRISIS SOUGHT

CONFERENCE OPENS AT LAUSANNE

FINANCIAL INHERITANCE OF WAR

British. Wireless. Rugby, June 16. J)URING his opening address to the delegates of the 18 nations assembled at the reparations conference at Lausanne Mi’. Ramsay MacDonald (British Prime Minister) stressed the extreme gravity and urgency of the problem confronting them —such an economic crisis that no country could expect to be immune from its effect. It was a world crisis, and none cortld stay out of the work of restoration and reconstruction.

They were to consider one of the causes of their distress —the financial inheritance of the war —and an agreement must be reached

regarding it. Mr. MacDonald cited the Basle experts’ report which

insisted that inter-Government debts must be revised, and he declared that the urgency of their appeal had been underlined by all that had happened since the report was issued.

SPEED ESSENCE OF TASK . IMPATIENCE OF THE WORLD. GREAT OPPORTUNITY PRESENTED. British Wireless. Rugby, June 16. The delegates must remember in all their deliberations and bargaining that the "world looked to them not only in need, but also with impatience, Mr. MacDonald told the conference. It was the essence of their task that they should act speedily, for an agreement, if reached quickly, would have an effect a hundred times more beneficial than one painfully and imperfectly secured at the last moment of exhaustion.

One principle definitely before the conference was that an engagement solemnly entered into could not be satisfied by unilateral repudiation. Mr. MacDonald believed that the principle was not challenged by any of the delegates, but it carried the corollary that definite engagements which had proved incapable of fulfilment must be revised by an agreement. Mr. MacDonald added: “1 believe that a great opportunity now presents itself for us to unite in checking the active influences now making for general economic deterioration. If we do this Europe cannot act alone, and we must all welcome the assurance that after the present phase is over the United States will encourage us to believe that it will co-operate in an examination, at any rate of the wider problems, and join with us. in devising a policy for the maintenance of a civilisation which shall be based on prosperity of all the ' nations.”

The conference, after its opening sitting, adjourned until to-morrow, the interval being spent in arranging the programme of work, Both to-morrow’s meetings will be private discussions, and will be opened by the German Chancellor, Herr von Papen, with a statement on Germany’s economic situation.

BARRIERS AGAINST REDS ENGLAND AND ITALY ALONE. MUSSOLINI’S VIEWS OF NEED. Rec. 7 p.m. Rome, June 16. England and Italy were the only two barriers against the Bolshevisation of Europe, said Signor Mussolini in an interview with the Daily Express. Both were united and disciplined. America had no policy. In the meantime, Europe was drifting to disaster and Bolshevisation.

“Democracy is nothing, the people are nothing and can do nothing,” added the dictator. “The people of every country are weary of words; they need men of action; they require saviours. The era of war debts and reparations is over and belongs to the buried past. If Germany says no, Italy will say no.”

GERMANY’S DECLARATION REPARATIONS UNREAUSABLE. MORATORIUM EXTENSION AGREED. Rec. 1 a.m. London, June 17. Herr von Papen, German Chancellor, when the Lausanne conference resumed, was emphatic in his declaration that reparations had now been revealed as unrealisable and useless. The time for palliatives or delay by adjournment had definitely passed. A decisive effort was now necessary.

Mr. MacDonald at the second plenary sitting read a declaration signed by Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Japan, agreeing as creditors to extend the war debt moratorium during the currency of the conference, thus covering the payments due on July 1. Other creditors likewise agreed.