Evening star., 1932-05-01


Nations Council.
- ENEVA - Whittier is Europe
bound? One may well ask
II when confronted by the diff
~ culties of the Disarmament
Conference, the failure of the
Four-Power Conference-Great Britain,
France, Italy and Germany-for the
settlement Of the Danubian problems
and the rising tide of Hitlerism in Ger
many, in itself consequence of the
difficulties in which the Reich is
plunged.
There is not an inch of sky which
is not black, not a cloud which is not
swelling, and with such an outlook we
realize we dare not risk a mistake
Under the eyes of Asia-so profoundly
disturbed by the Chinese Japanese
conflict, whether it precipitates China
further into anarchy or whether it
paves the way to unity and gives a
common soul, a common aim and a
common government to that vast pop
ulation-under that gaze there must be
no mistakes.
Whittier is Europe bound?
Do Americans Realize?
Over there in America do all those
free citizens who feel that their father
land Is America, but who still cherish
in their minds the memory of the
countries from which they come-do
they realize the anguish with which
these words are uttered by those here
who are conscious of all that Europe
the common mother, has contributed
to civilization as a whole?
My thought goes back to that dire,
blood-stained Spring of 1917, when Eu-
rope lay dying in the trenches, behind
the barbed wire barriers which divided
her from the North Sea to the shores
Of Asia. All, how those ships were
greeted which then came steering back
ward along the course once followed
by the young Lafayette, bringing to the
allies that inestimable aid which finally
broke the deadlock and finished the
war!
Whence will help come to us now?
I, a European, conscious of his duties
and of all the responsibilities for which
Europe stands-I do not hesitate to
that no more than In war can we do
without the help of America in peace:
either to organize security and thereby
arrive at disarmament, or to settle the
questions of reparations and debts and
thereby free ourselves from these bur-
dens which, together with the cost of
armaments, depress the entire economy,
OF Europe and prevent it from recoY-s
ering its elasticity and confidence.
But, as in the war, we must begin by
helping ourselves, and this maxim we
must apply in the first place to the
latest and most discouraging of the
checks We have sustained.
On Verge Of Collapse.
A considerable part of Central and
eastern Europe is on the verge of COL
lapse. refer to the group of coun-
tries on the banks of the Danube.
which, by their geographical situation
and economic interdependence. COM
prise the Danubian Basin. Of these,
some have ceased to pay their debts
and proclaimed moratorium. Others
are about to follow this example.
In all these countries there is great
distress. The standard of life of the
wage earnerS has fallen below human
level, and in many places the peasants,
even those who own their land but
cannot export, are returning to the
primitive method of barter, exchanging
the products of their farms for goods
local traders can supply. Money is
either missing or has become deval-
orized
And yet behind these frontiers. too
often menace to their neighbors.
live some tens of millions of people
who, because in normal times they have
level of life lower than that of the
workers and peasants of Western Eu-
rope and America, would constitute if
they were once set on their feet vast
market for the exports of the indus
trial countries and would thus restore
In part the equilibrium of their trade
balance
The attempt was made to help this
process of restoration from the outside.
but this initiative, undertaken by France,
was foiled by considerations of inter-
national politics or of misunderstood
economic interest.
Is the matter to be left there?
League Bares Conditions.
The Financial Committee of the
League of Nations has issued a report
which hides not one iota of the shock
ing reality. In consequence of that
unhappy tendency to postponements
and delay in the League of Nations,
which its best friends deplore, nothing
positive has been decided. The matter