The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1932. THE DANUBIAN COUNTRIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1932, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1932. THE DANUBIAN COUNTRIES.

.The, Daiuibian countries are experiencing so distressful a share -of the economic difficulties which are con-

fronting the woilcl that their more powerful neighbours, apprehensive of the outcome, feel constrained to lend them si helping hand. The British Government lias invited French, German, and Italian representatives to discuss the position at a four-Power conference in London. The live principal Danubian States—Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Rumania—stand in a common need of a trade revival. Their financial recovery cannot otherwise be brought about. Under the influence of an exaggerated nationalism it is pointed 1 out, they have tended to make too much of their political frontiers and have failed to co-operate a,s they might liavo done to their mutual advantage. In 1918 the nations of the old Hapsburg monarchy placed independence and self-government higher than econ--1 omie interests. 'I he great problem , that has been facing them ever since 1 has been that of devising some means of restoring severed economic ties 1 without sacrificing the essence of in- | dependence. It has required a world economic, .crisis, .however,.,., to bring 1 home to them the vital necessity of economic co-operation if disaster is to 1 lie averted. .The plight of Hungary I is illustrated in the fact that in her I financih! dilemma she appealed last j y<»ar to the League of Nations, which ' advised her that she should cut down her Budget and continue to pay her I foreign obligations. rhfat. did not prevent her Government from announcing three months ago the neces- ■ sity for a year’s moratorium on most of the country’s debt payments,,—a I rather serious matter for the foreign investors. The solitary example of ; Alter-State co-operation among the Danubian countries is furnished in the Little Entente, but though the existence of this lias prevented dangerous upheavals and assured the status quo, : it lias solved neither the vexed question. of the position of minorities nor that of economic barriers. Tbe three countries included in the Entente. and Hungary and Austria, < should in the natural order of events trade with one another, hut high tariff walls and the rationing of imports have reduced their trade to a shadow of what it should ho. Czechoslovakia fared reasonably well till latterly, but the penury of her customers and the British tariff have altered her position for the worse. Austria and Hungary are dead markets to her, unable to pay even for past imports, and the importing capacity of Rumania and Jugoslavia is dubious. Most proposals for a remedy are based on some scheme of Danubian co-operation, not, it is stated, in the form of a Customs union in the immediate future at all events, hut in the shape of a preferential system embracing the three members of the Little Entente and ! Austria and Hungary. It has been suggested that negotiations for coI operation between these five States would he in danger of ending in chaos, while for two of them only to act in co operation might arouse Suspicion on the part of the others. “An economic union between the throe States of Hu* Little Entente,” writes Professor R. W. Scton-Watson, “would at once acquire a sharp point against Hungary and Austria and increase political friction; a similar union between Austria and Hungary would for obvious geological reckons he regarded ;■ >v< directed toward- splitting „p lho Little Entente; while either project wmlld perpetuate the groupi<r; between enemy ted vanquished States, and the suggestion for union h-.'l n oon all three would siniolv alarm public ooiuiow iu Czechoslovakia and he regarded a is an at;l'"'ipl lo separate he” from tor all’”';.” Again, an agreement helwoen Hungary am Rumania. «'r between Romania and | Jugoslavia, would, it is poicied mil, pro, -out lo obvious advanlages as affecting c tales pro lomin'id h' ag Parian ami ther-fme not standin-- in such need of 0” li other’s products. The conclusion drawn by Professor Seton-AVatson is that the most pvo-

mining line of approach is between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. As lie observes, a recurrent clamour for territorial changes only increases the paralysis of trade and agriculture from which (lie peoples on both sides of the frontiers are suffering, and the real need is “to deprive those frontiers, to the utmost limit possible, of tlicir present character as economic and cultural harriers.” .All things considered, the ability of the delegates at the London conference is likely to he severely taxed to discover a practicable scheme whereby the restoration of the economic prosperity of the whole Danubian area may be effectually furthered.