POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21043, 21 February 1940, Page 6

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION

It is significant that Mr Sumner Welles, In his survey ol world opinion regarding post-war reconstruction, is travelling direct to Rome, where he apparently hopes to establish a precedent for negotiations in other capitals. Italy is neutral, but she has a tremendous interest in the economic and political structure that must arise from the ashes of the present war. Only recently Italy announced that she was no longer a “satisfied nation.” Pressure of population and the need of access to raw materials left her with something to demand from the new world order.

Mr Welles will find no lack of material for discussion at Rome. It might be asked why the annexation of Abyssinia has not provided Italy with the living room she requires, but evidence is not lacking that that ill-starred adventure was a more or less barren victory for the Italian people. It has not supplied an outlet for the growing population and it has not produced the minerals and other raw materials that are urgently required. Therefore Italy declares that, next to Germany, she is the nation with the greatest need of territorial expansion and access to the world’s markets. Mr Welles, then, can be sure that in his list of countries that must share in ihe new order, Italy will be among the “have nots.” Against her needs must be balanced some other country which is willing to make a concession of some sort, whether in territory, in trade or the right to exploit materials. This is only the beginning of the great task the magnitude of which Mr Welles has set out to survey. Of course trade is the secret. The removal of tariff barriers and the reorganisation of the currencies would remove many of the present difficulties. Italy, indeed, has not such a crowded population as Britain, Holland and Belgium, among other countries. It is not “living room” she wants so much as the breaking down of the economic nationalism which she herself has helped to construct.