Evening star., 1932-07-24
Disarmament Issue and Trade


The first thing that good doctor
does, having found that some particular
treatment is failure, Is to abandon it :;
and the isolated protectionist system
has proved to be most desperate fail
ure as a means Of restoring health
either to any one nation or the world
as a whole. The proposal that there
should be customs agreement between
Belgium. Holland and the Scandinavian
countries Is an encouraging step in the
right direction.
Mr. Ramsay Macdonald has pre-
scribed the second part of the remedy.
1t Is to wipe the slate clean of all the
nter-governmenta debts arising from
the World War. That is essential, not
only because some of the debtor coun-
tries are unable to find the necessary
money, but also because no scheme has
yet been devised to work these huge,
annual unilateral payments into the
general system Of supply, demand and
exchange which makes up the COM
merce of the world There is no way
in which they can be looked upon as
anything but burdens disadvantages or
impediments in the general task of
economic recovery. Reparations and
war debts, clogged, as they aref with
recriminations and the memory of past
hatreds, should be thrown overheard.
The accord reached at the Lausanne
reparations conference was step in
this direction.
But I am convinced that neither of
these drastic economic or financial
remedies would succeed without the
major political remedy which Geneva
for five months has been struggling to
find, and which President Hoover pre-
scribed in so vigorous fashion on
June % Reduction of armaments, he
said would be the most important
step to be taken to expedite economic
recovery We must make headway
against the fear and friction arising out
of ornaments, which kill confidence
throughout the world"
It is not only or mainly that for
many nations armaments have become
an almost intolerable financial burden
It is that the maintenance and deyel-
opment of rival military preparations
on such a scale wither the faith of
mankind in all peace pactS, covenants
and treaties; it is that the fragrant in
equality in status between victor and
vanquished keeps alive the mistrust
and hatred of the war period: it is, in
short, that the volume and distribution
of the worlds ornaments today are
both the cause and the symptom of
the lack Of confidence and good will be-
tween nations Till these are restored
no economic recovery is possible. For
the crisis is first and last a crisis of
confidence. Suspicion of one nation S
motives by another, famed by that evil
genius of democracy, the nationalist
newspaper, too often subsidized by
armament firms-it is this that makes
people afraid of investing their money
abroad. which makes creditors want to
recall their loans, and which paralyzes
the whole operation of international
credit.
Without success at Geneva the set
tlement at Lausanne cannot be lasting
the ''strangulation Of international
trade" cannot be stopped and there is
no chance, either, of persuading the
Americans to dispense with the debt
payments Of European nations, or,
what is far more important. to show
them that in the interests of the eco
nomic recovery OF the world. upon
which American prosperity depends, it
would pay them and us to wipe the
slate clean.