Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-22
EUROPEAN UNITY is SEEN
AS WAY TO PROSPERITY
Peace and Welfare of Continent Hinge
ON Revolutionary Change in
Economic Structure

cover the expense by tariffs The spec
tacle OF Hungary, which Is purely
agricultural nation by natural circum-
stance, closing its frontiers to Czech
manufactures and undertaking to con-
struct an expensive national industry Is
sample Of such folly.
In the larger sense the whole Euro
pean tradition of nationalisn, based
upon ethnic circumstance, has broken
down under the strain Of contemporary
industrial and economic facts. Europe
is up against a fundamental collision
between prosperity and patriotism. Peo-
Piles are now faced with q momentouS
decision between q further development
Of parochial nationalism and the
achievement of something at least
vaguely reproducing American stand
ards of living.
Must BE One. Standard.
Broadly speaking, it is now clear that
there must be one standard OF living II
the European tribes are to Hive exclu-
sively as Germans and Poles. French
man and Italians, Magyars and Czechs,
and quite another If they are to live
collectively as Europeans. And 1t is
just rs clear that If the continental
peoples insist upon adhering to their
traditional ethnic Separation, the pos
America disappears automatically.
You say the thing quite completely
If you compare the present situation in
Europe with the now almost forgotten
strife between individual and corpora
ton production, not merely between
hand. labor and the machine, but be-
tween the old Infinitely divided steel
works and, say. the United States Steel
CORPORATION. In a word. political Eu-
rope Of today is an economic anachro-
nism. $3.50 -
Not So Easy. 80, -
OF. course, nothing is easier for an
American than to exaggerate the ex-
tent to which cooperation and fedora
ton in Europe are politically possible
in any immediate future and to undef-
estimate the spiritual values that the
various peoples attach to their national
cultures. The obvious common sense
view, which sweeps away the iInpondeT-
ables for the material circumstances, is
at once so appealing and for US so nat
ural that We arrive at conclusions while
Europe is still struggling with premises.
Yet 1t is profoundly true that all over
Western and Central Europe the war
did result in establishing the conyic-
ton that the old nineteenth century
conceptions Of nationalisn1 were tncom-
patible not merely with peace but with
prosperity. True, the immediate post
war years. like the Paris Peace Confer.
ence itself, were marked by an explo-
sion Of nationalisms which astonished
and disguised both American and Brit
ish observers. But just as clearly the
progress of the League of Nations in
Europe and the growing Importance OF
the annual sessions at Geneva are due
to the spreading of sense OF solidarity.
None Alive Likely to See It.. ,,...-s
No one now alive is likely to see
Europe united in any American fashion
in the political sense. On the other
hand. nothing is less improbable tnan N
that within a generation questions OF
tartd and production may have become
q matter of common and concerted ac-
ton. And obviously. cooperation in In
dustry means q measurable dtmtnutton
in political rivalry and international
Quarreling.
1t has become automatic to say that
another war would mean the, ruin OF
Europe, but what Is really significant Is
the fact that it is becoming equally
clearly perceived that the present kind
OF peace Is incompatible with European
prosperity. Peace In the old ipre-war
sense Is not enough. Europe has to get
out not merely of the political but OF
the economic trenches. A divided Eu-
rope is not merely unstable, but 1t Is
uneconomic.
And we are today precisely at the
point at which the real experiment must
begin. The war is about to be liqui-
dated: reparations and occupation, all
the things we have quarreled about for
the past ten years are about to be dis
posed Of. At last new business Is to
come up. And it is patent that BRAND
has sensed the inevitable approach of
a new period and the arrival Of new
problem. Nor is it less clear that he is
seeking for himself and for his nation
the role Of leadership in the new proc,
ess Hence his ever-growing nsistence
upon his scheme for European unity.
CCopyrinht 1921