PEACE DEMANDS STATESMANSHIP

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22689, 17 August 1945, Page 2

PEACE DEMANDS STATESMANSHIP

Reconversion from a war to a peace economy has at last become an immediate necessity. In the past six years much has'been heard about full employment, the lifting or continuing of controls and rationing, and in general the new order to which the world has been looking forward in that hitherto indefinite period “after the war.” This is after the war, and the ability of every country to cope with the new situation is about to be put to the test. Some may be found unprepared because the war against Japan ended earlier than most people expected.

In countries such as the United States and Britain the great problem will be the closing of war manufacturing industries and the conversion to peacetime manufacture. In the United States it is believed that unemployment figures may reach 8,000,000 by the spring. Plans have to be made for the adequate sustenance of these people until places can be found for them in the peacetime economy. It is clear therefore that taxation will remain at a high level, though it should be possible to apply the brakes to the rapidly mounting national debts. In the United States the war to date has cost 300,000,000,000 dollars,, and the end of such expenditure is not yet. A considerable portion of this expenditure has passed into public debt. New Zealand from a manpower point of view is more fortunate than most countries. A larger proportion of her workers is engaged in industry as essential in peace as in war—in the production of food and in building, for instance. Food production is amenable to much greater expansion, and building is an urgent necessity. The time has come to consider where wartime controls are likely to interfere with the realisation of the aim of full employment and with the freedoms for which the war was fought. The Government has promptly lifted the Press censorship which has been strictly enforced throughout the war. It will quickly receive a long list of requests for other relaxations. Probably in the next few years there will be need for statesmanship of a higher order than has been necessary for many years. There are vast differences in the demands on administration in peace as compared with wartime government.