HAPPIER AUSPICES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 659, 12 January 1933, Page 1

HAPPIER AUSPICES.

Foreign Relations for 1933 Reviewed. DEBT PAYMENTS MUST END. British Official Wireless. (Received Januarv 12, noon.) RUGBY, January 11. Captain Anthony Eden, speaking on the international outlook, said that the j slow progress made by the Disarmament Conference was not due to the faults, or failings, of the technical ex- j perts, or to the ambitions or suspicions , of armament firms, but to the unsatistory state of political relations in Europe. It was to the securing of some improvement in those relations, to a ; realisation of appeasement in Europe, ! that the Conference must devote its ; energies this year, and it must ap- ; proach the task in no narrow and selfish spirit. had now returned to the Conference, and to that extent at least the Conference, therefore, had started under happier auspices in the New Year. In the chequered course of foreign politics in 1932 the Lausanne Conference stood out as a marked success. Lausanne closed an unprofitable chapter of history—post-war reparations. In Europe manifestly, however, the burden of vast international payments could not be finally liquidated until the greatest creditor nation, the United States, stated her attitude towards them. Britain was both a debtor and a creditor nation. It therefore naturally was clear to her how vicious in its influence on world commerce was the attempt to make vast international transfer payments, which had no commercial counterpart. Britain could hardly be surprised if the greatest creditor nation was less quick to see the picture in the same perspective, but that perspective was none the less true. These international payments dislocated trade, lowered commodity prices and impoverished primary producers the world over. Until they ceased they would inevitably hamper world recovery, It therefore was in the interest of everyone, creditor and debtor alike, to bring them to an end.