Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-22
EUROPE DRIFTS TOWARD
ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE
Crises in Many Nations Center About
Whole System of Rule and
Dismay Leaders.

ministers have felt obliged to divert
home At.ention from home problems -
carrying on form 81 prestige politics
abroad. But prestige politics, like tariff
devices, have only awakened reprisal,
and in the end the extreme nationalistS
of various countries have been brought
into collision. and foreign ministers,
contrary to their will and Judgment,
have been condemned to wage futile
battles over questions which are either
trivial or beyond adjustment In any
present time.
Foreign Policies Involved.
It is true, of course, that the economic
crisis in America has produced political
results, but these results have not mate.
rally affected our foreign relations.
The quarrels between Congress and the
President have arisen over parochial
questions. The opposition In the United
States Is not assailing the administra-
ton because of its Mexican or Cana
dian policies.
That is the great and unmistakable
difference between the effect of the eco
nomic crisis in Europe and in the United
States Moreover, there is second diff
ference, not less striking, that while In
America the battle centers around the
next presidential campaign and the per-
sonality of President Hoover, in many
European countries it centers about the
whole form and system of government.
Looked at on the surface. viewed
solely through the news reports of day
to-day events, Europe seems in general
to be following its traditional course, to
be quarreling over the old issues, the
rivalries of states, the conflicting claims
of races. All the old stuff Is there and
Is unpleasantly reminiscent of both pre-
war and postwar days. But the more
closely one studies the situation, the
clearer becomes the fact that something
far more serious is at work, and that
We may in the end be facing something
as far reaching as the French Revolu-
ton itself.
Public Men DisillusiOned.
More than one foreign minister has
in recent times expressed to me his vast
disillusionment, his self-deception In be-
lieving that with the various tnterna-
tional agreements, the League Covenant,
the Locarno and Kellogg pacts, the va
rious arbitration agreements, the war
had been liquidated and European re-
covery assured. This economic crisis.
which M. Hymans, the foreign minister
of Belgium, wildly likened to a delayed
post-operative shock, has come unex-
pectedly, demolished all plans, and has
left the public men In visible and
mounting diSarray.
Actually the public men Of Europe.
despite the noise in the press and on
the platform. are not thinking about
war, but about unemployment. But In
no European country Is there political
leader or political party firmly in con-
troll and possessed Of a definite program
of relief. Thus, as I have said, in all
countries public men strive 10 distract
public attention from economic ques-
tons by agitating such issues as revision
of frontiers, reduction OF debts and
disarmament.
Meantime. as the total Of unemploy-
ment mounts in ell countries, all sober
minded public men perceive that public
treasures cannot indefinitely stand the
strain. And the day when relief from
public funds Is no longer available, the
deluge may come. Moreover. there Is
one more striking circumstance. Before
the present economic crisis the parli-
amentary system had In many countries
broken down and dictators had been
substituted But under the strain Of
the present crisis the dictator has been
as helpless as the prime minister OF q
parliamentary country Mussolni and
Pilsudski have been just as powerless as
Ramsay Macdonald and Bruening.
Therefore dictatorship, too. Is on the
decline On the whole, the worst plight
of all is that of the dictatorship Of the
proletariat in Soviet Russia.
In sum, the impression gather from
Geneva and from the public men OF
all European countries here assembled
is this: With the exception Of France,
the condition in all continental countries
has become such that the familiar
issues and problems of the postwar
era, problems political and military,
have become actually side issues. Dis
indignation within countries has, be-
come so general and gone. so far that
one of the most familiar judgments one
meets is that capitalistic and demo-
cratic civilization is endangered, If not
doomed, and that Europe Is drifting
toward a general catastrophe. still con-
tinuing to murmur the old words of
nationalism.
Or. to put it differently, there Is
growing recognition that recovery from
the World War has not even yet begun
and that no one can now guess what
the new Europe will be like, although
more and more are convinced that 1t
will be incredibly unlike the old In any
event what seems in America to have
remained an economic crisis has in
Europe broadened into a political, social
and intellectual crisis. Informed people
are no longer discussing the question
of return of prosperity, but whether
old Europe can survive this final
catastrophe.
(Copyright, 1879