The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1930. RIGHT TO INTERFERE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18650, 20 August 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1930. RIGHT TO INTERFERE.

“Has a Government any legal or moral right to interfere with private trade in war materials?” is the question that has attracted attention in diplomatic circles since the State Department of the United States last month placed a ban on the sale of aircraft and munitions to Russia. Strong protests which were voiced in the American Press brought equally emphatic support of the State Department’s refusal to arm Russia. So much has been said of the Soviet's peaceful inten tions and the decreasing dependence of arms in keeping the plotters of Moscow in the saddle, that it is surprising to discover that Russia is actually operating in the markets of the world for the purchase of armaments and munitions. The American policy, it is stated, although hitherto unannounced, was decided six months ago when an inquiry was received by the State Department from an American company as to the feasibility of selling submarines to the Russian Government. It has since been reported that the statement that the embargo was due to the absence of diplomatic relations was generally accepted as more of a formal than a substantial reason. In fact, it was tacitly admitted in official circles that it was due

“to certain recent developments,” but what these were no one seemed to know. In some circles it was surmised that possibly the disturbed conditions in India and Afghanistan across the Russian border had led to some request, formal or informal, from the British Government. Other views were that the policy was based on the broad grounds that. Russia might become a disturbing factor in the world. It is nevertheless significant that the country which is supposed to regard as one of its most important missions, the destruction of militarism, should be scouring world markets only to suffer a definite rebuff at the liandH of a country which the Socialists and Communists of the world regard as the most thrusting people in quest of trade. The American press raised quite a storm of protests. “A hypocritical and unwarranted interference with American business” is how one responsible journal regards the State Department's ban. Another journal replies by saying that “the Uuited States is in duty bound not to lend its assistance to movements seeking to overthrow governments with which it is at peace.” Tlius the press of the Uuited States engaged in a lively controversy in which all the old arguments about Soviet Russia are polished anew and used again. The discussion became heated when the leading newspapers made the following announcement: Through the abandonment by the Glenn L. Martin Company, of Baltimore, of plans to sell twenty twinmotored bombing airplanes at a cost of about 2,000,000 dollars to Russia, it has become known that the United States Government has adopted a policy amounting to an embargo on the export of arms, munitions, and military airplanes to the Soviet Union. Reports from Baltimore that the projected sale had fallen through were followed to-day by admissions at the State Department that it had vetoed the arrangement on May 14 through a letter to the Martin Company, stating that it views with disfavour the exportation of armaments to Russia, inasmuch as the United States has no diplomatic relations with the Government.

[Has the State legal or moral right to interfere with private trade in -war materials? The reply came back from press and public leaders from end to end of the United States, who based their support of the Government’s decision on the emphatic conviction that the ban is “a proper curb upon a disturbing menace,” and that “for every reason” the embargo is necessary.

THE HOSPITAL BUILDING. Pressed by a large and influential deputation, representative of various taxpaying units of the district upon which will fall the annual statutory proportion of interest and sinking fund payments on capital outlay involved in the construction of the proposed administration block at the Timaru Hospital, the members of the South Canterbury Hospital Board had no alternative, not only to reconsider the position, but rescind the Board’s previous decision to postpone building operations pending more favourable financial conditions. It is just as well to point to two phases of the question which probably influenced the Minister of Finance and the Department of Health in the decision to instruct the Director-General of Health to interview the Board. In the first place, it should be pointed out that the Minister of Finance is so hard pressed for ready cash that it has become the policy of the Government to discourage capital expenditure, save only for urgent works. Subsequent developments have shown that the Treasury officials accurately sensed the trend of the money market and it is even now suggested that there is a likelihood of the Treasury itself being compelled to pay higher rates of

interest for the customary accommodation that is temporarily granted the Treasury by the Banks in anticipation of the ordinary revenue which flows into the Treasury in the earlier months of the year at a slower rate ban money goes out. The Minister of Finance has therefore some justification for discouraging competition on the money market by local governing bodies who seek funds for capital expenditure on buildings. So far, however, no one has shown that the Hospital Board can readily obtain the sum of £IO,OOO at the fixed rate of interest to meet the proposed capital outlay. Another point taken into consideration by the Department, is that the building programme previously decided ou by the Hospital Board will not provide additional hospital accommodation; indeed, the expenditure of £IO,OOO, notwithstanding the statements to the contrary, will not provide a single extra bed in the hospital, nor Improve existing facilities or comforts of the ward patients. Nevertheless, it can be shown that the Board has been guided by experts of the Department of Public Health in its decision to proceed with the rebuilding of the hospital by first providing an up-to-date administration block. It is the construction of this block that the deputation which waited on the Hospital Board yesterday afternoon, requested should be proceeded with without delay. The composition of the deputation should convince the Department that the district is in real earnest in its request that there should be no delay in making a beginning with the work. Obviously, since the people who have to pay the piper are anxious to proceed, we see no reason for the Department to withhold its authority ; more particularly in view of the fact that before the Director-General visited Temuka last month, authority had already been given, while there is further support of the deputation's request in the plain fact that the commencement of a large construction work at the present moment would materially relieve the somewhat stagnant labour market, and the general economic and, financial conditions prevailing to-day might not inconceivably yield additional advantages to the Board in the bedrock tenders that might be obtained.