The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1916. A NEW ERA IN ECONOMIC HISTORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 June 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1916. A NEW ERA IN ECONOMIC HISTORY.

Never before in the history of nations lias tlide been such an epoch-making event A : > the war that is now raging. There have been wars—great wars—that have completely altered the map of the world, and obliterated at one time powerful empires, but there has not yet been a war wnich has brought about such an economic revolution as .that which will result from the deliberations of the Paris Conference 11 is lecognisod that Germany's ambition for world domination was nurtured and made possible by her marvellous system of commercial expansion, and that the victims of her inordinate and unsatiable lust have unfittingly forged the weapons whereby they are now attacked, for it was by menus of the g(M won by exploiting the world's markets that Germany her vast armies and Limine possessed of a formidable navy. It is also known that Germany has a vast quantity of merchandise to dump down wherever she can after the war, and that she is putting forth her most strenuous efforts to regain the trade which she possessed before the war. Under these, circumstances the important step taken by the Allies in holding a Conference on the vital question of trade after the war, was wi«c and politic. Germany, in making her commercial system the lever for aggression, lias shown equal skill and thoroughness in her commercial organisation as in her military, Few there are outside Germany that realise how completely that nation has oecome a :iere machine working at the bidding of the authorities. As a nation of soldiers, accustomed to an iron discipline and an arbitrary master, they have become the passive instruments for the furtherance of autocratic ambition. In Germany the State is all-powerful, and the people mere slaves, willing slaves, probably, but none the less absolutely bound down to obey the behests of the Government.' Possibly the apologists for Germany may claim that the State is the embodiment of socialism, inasmuch as it controls the distribution of nearly all the raw material, the price of most of the goods in the home market, and all the export arrangements. The whole of the trndc and commerce of the country is so dominated and fostered by the State for its' own ends that it has become a potent factor in the militarism which has become a menace to the world's pimce. It will be seen, therefore, that the economic question is almost, if not quite, as important as the military, and the Paris Conference is the outcome of the determination of the Allies to carry on a, trad.) war against Germany to the utmost of their power. In the ordinary way a conference is merely a convenient medium for the interchange of opinions, but the delegates at the Economic Conference in Paris, although not authorised to commit their Government's to any definite

action—a very proper safeguard, inasmuch as several of the interested Governments were not represented—passed resolutions pledging the adoption of certain principles Unit can be put into immediate action if they meet with approval, as in all probability they will. For instance, one of the resolutions adopted was practically an undertaking that the Allies should proceed to frame perman. cut measures to do away with all dependence on foreign countries' for raw materials and manufactures essential to the normal development of their economic activities, while giving each of the Allies the liberty to adopt its own methods of carrying out this decision. The one oreat object in view is to secure concerted action against enemy trading There can be no question that this policy, •if carried out as it should be, will act as a most powerful lever in promoting tie expansion of industries in the various countries of the Allies, while stimulating and cemerting the close friendship which now'exists between them. The commercial and industrial development that must inevitably arise out of such a step will be of incalculable benefit to all the nations concerned, and it will enable them to re-establish their crippled finances. As far as possible they should each be self-contained, and in this respect the British Empire has much to gain. . u war has shown our producers and manufacturers where their weakness lies, and it has emphasised the loss ensuing from neglected opportunities as well as from conservative and insular methods of transacting business. With the new era must come fresh methods that will meet the exigencies of the vastly altered ethic* of economy. In effect the new departure will be an economic but systematic revolution involving, so far as the British l.Tnpirc is concerned, important and necessary constitutional rearrangements. This was bound to come sooner or later, but now that the bond of unity is at its maximum strength it is a fitting time for instituting the change hat will add to the power, the resources, and the status of the Empire and all its units, while preserving the cherished self-de-pendence of each. In this new era of economical history, Germany will, like Hie dog in the fable, find that she has dropped the substance in her eagerness to seize the shadow.