THOUGHTS FOR THE TIMES

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1922, Page 2

THOUGHTS FOR THE TIMES

The Financial Plight Of Euhope. If the economic needs of Europe were the primary consideration, in international policy Britain’s course would be tolerably clear. We should recognise at once that modern industrial and transport conditions have brought all countries into such close trading relationship as to make each an integral part of the trading world as a whole. One nation, and still more a group of nations, cannot be broken up amd impoverished so as to destroy its ability to function without throwing the entire machine out of gear. If Russia fails to buy tea in China or India, Britain’s Eastern market for cottons is narrowed, the United States sells leas raw cotton to Britain, and shipping and banking, and insurance business is impaired. Illustrations could be multiplied indefinitely, showing how the trade of each country' is linked up with that of the whole world. Britain’s own trade cannot reoover its pre-war activity whilst so many countries continue in their present broken-down condition, and though plans to foster export trade by the grant of special credit facilities may be a temporary palliative, the only lasting solution of the problem is by .the re-estnblishment of genuine peace and an ordered system of government throughout Europe. i —Hon. R. McKenna."