June 30.
It may be well to recall the exact nature of the task which jis now engaging the best minds of Europe at Lausanne. It is "to agree on a lasting. settlement of the question raised fu the report the 'Basle experts and onthe measures necessary to solve the Sther economic and fifieuities which, are responsible for, and may prolong, the present world crisis'
In effect. this Conference every nation is to-day suffering. In great measure these dis-labilities have precipitated local crises here and in many other parts of the globe. The dignified revolution in Siam, the shirt-sleeved, collarless upheaval in Chile, the accentuation of the Indian political problem, the widespread distress in' the United States of America, all have their roots in the world) crisis. Despairing recollection lof the succession of conferences which have sought to prescribe remedies for current afflictions in the body politic during the last decade precludes extravagant hopes. When, too, it is realised that economists' differ regarding the course of action to be taken and that political happenings in almost every feountry mainly concerned have inevitably tied the hands of the physicians, some degree of sympathy for the delegates must be generated. It is this perplexing condition which has made it imsible for the nations to give full heed to their own experts' condemnation nearly a year ago International financial which involves the annual payment of large sums by debtor to creditor countries, while at the' same time putting obstacles in the Way of the free movement of Pertinently the smaller nations lof Western Europe made an fearly declaration at the present conference of the pressing ced {for the lowering of tariff barriers, But the political issues have to be solved before that: important step can be taken with It would be wrong to assign to any one nation the blame for the failure of the conference to move rapidly to agreement. As these lines are writ ten there still hope that its failure to move.
[at all will not occur. One thing is plain: the essence of the issue jat Lausanne is primarily Europ-lean, Europe must settle her lown difficulties before she earn honourably and. successfully, look to the United States of JAmerica to consider the question of a general settlement.
posals made for the eancellation of Germany's war debt are very different from those which imply an expectation that Amejtica, unless encouraged thereto by satisfactory movements in Europe, should forego her claims.' As has been well put a witty British writer, such suggestions amount in fact to Jan invitation in 1932 that America should enter the Great War in 1914 instead of in 1917, The Young Plan, in the light of the Basle Report, cannot possibly be carried out. It is beside the point to argue that Germany has made the most of her own econlomic difficulties. If the lessons lof recent German political movements are rightly interpreted, it must be admitted that the danger of a German default. come not from any irresponsible at tempt to evade tolerable obliga. tions but from a real sense of the hopelessness of a position which leaves the new Republic exposed to financial and political disintegration, The prolongation of a moratorium is not, likely to be effective. It would be a pill to cure an earthquake.
[Canada's urgent. representations land valuable contributions to [that policy. The wise student lof affairs will not believe that some of the extravagant claims for that policy, put forward by certain sections of the "popular" press, have any chance of endorsement at Ottawa. The Nations of the British Common-[wealth have their own problems which prevent their ignoring the facts of their trade relations with foreign countries; this factor is also exceedingly active in direct ting the policy of the Mother Country. Yet, in this present world-c the gathering of delegates representing a fourth lof the world's population has a power of benefitting the pri cipal involved and, 0, of° extending the possibilities of covery to the other three-fourths lor a good portion thereof.
To-day, however, remem prance is called to' the Royal Proclamation of 65 years ago which, on the basis of the historic work already performed by Lord Durham in uniting Upper and Lower Canada, brought the present Dominion' into being. Its status has grown from time to time; its territories increased.
in 1926 it became an tonomous self-governing Dominion within the British Bmpire and it was elected [Council of the League of Nations in the following year. Of all the British territories in North pelleved ra be Toe con [has failed to take advantage of MacDonald is|America, only Newfoundland final settlement at Lausanne. M.
Herriot cannot be blind to. the logic of that position. Nor is the realism of French traditions 80 ineffective that the danger of playing the huckster's part wilh not be perceived. For the last two years the world has been brought, slowly and unwillingly, to realise the impossibility. of keeping alive a huge indebtedness which, in its baneful influence on the debtor, casts over the credi-for a paralysis, at first creeping and now almost on the point of complete domination of its victim, In the face of this condition it boots nothing to Europe that she should hang back in the hope that: America, when free of political pre-occupations, might stave off the ultimate disaster. America is grappling now with a momentous economic crisis; she is not out of the wood but she is showing a resourcefulness and a power of resistance no less than that other nation across the Atlantic, But she has the right to demand that to her people, struggling as they are with the poignant ills of overproduction, under - consumption and unemployment, the satiric picture should not be presented of a Europe expecting her, without guarantees of real value, to fore go her legitimate dues, Lausanne' job' is to make full provision for the removal of obstacles to the free flow of trade, for the dimi nation of forces of national unrest and for the protection of debtor nations against economic collapse. Then Europe's strength will be a plain invitation to America on plain business grounds to consider what further measures might be taken to hasten the world's economic salva~ tion. Unless Lausanne can do this the motor in Europe may only too clearly be sauve qui pewt—a portent of upheavals seen. fof which the end cannot be fore-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.