A MISTAKE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 523, 5 May 1933, Page 2

A MISTAKE

AUSTRIAN PREMIER DEPLORES POLICY OF OTTAWA. OOUNT BETHLEN'S WARNING. .. A' bitter attack on the Ottawa trade agreements has been delivered by Gount Bethlen, for ten years Conservative Premier of Hungary, in a letter to the Manchester Guardian. _Issuing a warning th'at Great Britain's adoption of the Ottawa tariffs "means , a fata.1 change in world trade." Count .Bethlen asserts that the Ottawa Conference was a disaster for the struggling countries of Central Europe and for the world at large. Empire iagreement will hlock the British market to the agricultural produce of Central Europe, h'e says, and "jeopardise in advance all the relief . the European agricultural States have , expected to attain as a result of the Stresa conference." The purchasing power of the Danuhian countries will be so crippled by the Ottawa tariffs, Count Bethlen adds, that industrial countries like Germany will he bound to be affected seriously. "With' the last of their strength," j he writes, "The Danubian countries are i awaiting the results of the World Economic Conference, hoping that, perha.ps help' will come forth in the eleventh' hour. "But should this conference also bring only disappointment, then, I fear, we shall witness a string of State hankruptcies, a chaotic situation in State finances as well a,s foreign currency and in the economic situation generally — conditions which may cause an outburst of the seething unrest which now exists in political difficulties and in one-sided conflicts. Or they will fesult in one-sided measures adopted by some countries, such a-s one-sided reduction in interest rates and one-sided refusal of payments. "That is to say, the Governments of

the various countries will no longer consider the interests of their creditors. They will aceept and deal with their emergency position in a onesided way, and in framing the new order of things, they will be led only iby the interest of their suffering masses." Th'e only way out is for the exporting countries to form different Customs unions with preferential tariff treaties. a method which h'e admits "contains the seeds of serious conflicts." "If the World Economic Conference does not remedy the mistakes committed at Ottawa and Stresa," he concludes, "events will move hy their own weight; they will follow th'eir course irresponsihly and without ,any possibility of control in the way that subterranean .liberated forces demand The end of this road cannot he guaged." '