WORLD CONFERENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19070, 7 October 1933, Page 7

WORLD CONFERENCE.

ECONOMIC AND MONETARY DOMINION DELEGATES’ REPORT. FINANCIAL DEADLOCK. \ Wellington, Friday. The report on the work of the Worid Monetary and Economic Conference Which was presented to Parliament to-day by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Foi’bes, who, with the Minister of ‘lndustries and Commerce, the Hon. R. Masters, represented New Zealand at the Conference, states: — "When the conference adjourned on July 27 the opinion Was widely expressed that it had failed. It is true that the conference aohieved little of what was expected’ of It,' yet during the session of the conference a great deal Of work was done, The field to be covered by the conference proved so vast, the problems so complex and the situation with which the conference hkd to deal was so unstable, that it Was not practicable to achieve immediate and definite results. “A breakdown occurred ih the work dfi an immediate monetary, and Uriahdal policy, in the circumstances-, 'this breakdown was unavoidable. Rightly or wrongly, the important group of countries constituting the European gold bloc took the stand that prevention of currency fluctuations was a necessary preliminary, &nd whs fundamental (to all RtWer measures. The United States of America oould mot agree to co-oper-ate by stabilising the dollar exchange, America's need to improve her internal conditions was to her much more important than the demand to cooperate in securing world recovery. “It follows that under these circumstances, the views and needs of the European gold bloc and of the Unitcfi States were quite irreconcilable and the faot that the conference failed to reach agreement on the matter of stabilisation was due to circumstances over which the conference and the countries concerned had little, if any, control,"

ATTITUDE OF AMERICANS. “ALWAYS EXPEGT THE WORST.” EXPEOT war debt payment. Writing to a friend in Hamilton, a resident of Chicago, United States, says: ■ , , “I am glad that you do not feel unkindly toward the United States for whatever fault it may have had In breaking up the conference, We over here think Very little of the way it ended. We think it was a foregone conclusion. We Americans are so used to seeing America get the worst end- of a conference that we always expect the Worst, “Will Rogers once said: “The United States never* lost a war and never won a conference.” Personally, I am not much perturbed by the failure of the conference, though the foreign papers that reach me show how bitter the hatred against the United States Is. "The war debt qbestlo-n over here, to the man in the street, has but one solution and that is to collect what is due us. The more educated classes, of course, realise how impossible this is and while not many stand for outright cancellation mobt ■of us feel that some concession Should'be made by the United States and that at least a partial payment should he demanded. But that is for the statesmen to decide.”