Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, J 939. NATIONAL OBJECTIVES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, J 939. NATIONAL OBJECTIVES.

JN his address when opening the annual conference ol the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the Governor-General (Lord Galway) not only laid the emphasis that might have been expected upon the supreme demand now raised in this country for a loyally united war effort, but made some timely observations also upon the desirability and need ol having a definite national objective—preferably one within the confines of our Empire that is possible of achievement and can be honestly pursued in the interests ol all classes. This is timely and pertinent counsel and by no means in the class of merely stating the obvious. Whatever may be thought of the extent to which planning and national control should be brought to bear upon economic and other phases of development—the question is one upon which there are wide and extreme differences of opinion—most New Zealanders capable of an unprejudiced outlook are of opinion that the development of our country thus far has been somewhat lacking in coherent purpose and that there is great need of selecting and aiming at clearly defined national objectives. Lord Galway urged, amongst other things, that if New Zealand is to preserve her status, the lands of the country must be cultivated and brought into more profitable use, that every advantage must be taken of scientific discoveries bearing on primary industry and that every possible inducement must be given to the young people of the Dominion to engage in farming as an occupation. It also appears to me essential (his Excellency observed) that there should be a closer and more friendly association between the primary producers, the manufacturers, and the distributors, and between the employer and the employee, in the interests of the prosperity of all classes. ' This is a fair and balanced statement of the fundamental conditions of true economic progress and prosperity. At present, we are faced on all sides by detail difficulties and problems. It is becoming more and more difficult to reconcile the costs and returns of our basic primary industries and to establish a fair economic balance between these industries and others. Although a free expansion of industries undoubtedly would confer all-round benefits and make for general prosperity, we are allowing high costs to operate with repressive effect on the conduct of existing industries and to hinder and impede very seriously the establishment of new industries. Many individual problems of industrial development appear, at a direct view, virtually insoluble. It is not in doubt, however, that this country has the means, if it will but make use of them, of developing land and other industries to a point of far greater advantage than has yet been attained. On the total facts of the position, no other conclusion is possible than that, as a people, we are to a considerable extent standing in our own light; and manufacturing difficulties to our own great detriment where industrial and general economic development is concerned. A very important part of the solution needed is the closer co-operation between different sections and groups advocated by Lord Galway—a closer and more friendly association between primary producers, manufacturers and distributors, and between employers and employees. In the case of land industry, for example, prosperous development plainly must depend upon an expansion of either external or internal markets or both. Apart from the extraordinary conditions meantime introduced by the war, our primary industries have been faced of late by inelastic or contracting external markets, and at the same time by a rapid expansion of competitive production within and beyond the Empire. This state of affairs does not altogether favour the free expansion of agricultural industry recommended by Lord Galway, but in the right conditions of national co-operation it might be changed vastly for the better in many ways. There are important possibilities of more varied production from the land, and in some instances of a more intensive use of smaller areas. At a long view, too, it is just as much in the interests of primary producers as of other sections of the population that manufacturing industries should be developed enterprisingly. Every successful step in that direction enlarges the local market for primary produce and this is essentially a country in which it should be possible to develop secondary industries in close touch and association with primary industry. Tn spite of much that is said to the contrary, the Dominion is reasonably well supplied with raw materials of various kinds, though like most countries it will always be under the necessity of importing some materials, and probably is unsurpassed in the world in its developed and potential supplies of hydro-electric power capable of being made available at virtually any point at which it is needed.

The all-important condition of a more effective ami profitable use of the abounding' opportunities this country offers is a much greater readiness on the part of the various'groups and sections of its people to co-operate for their mutual benefit. Involving as it does ultimate moral issues, the closer and more friendly association advised by Lord Galway is the key to a solution, not only of our economic problems, but of all our national problems in their widest scope.

“A BETTER EUROPE.”

JT has been left to one of Germany's most discredited diplomats in Herr von Papen to advance the remarkable claim that Germany plans 1o establish a European commonwealth after the war. In the fate of Austria, Czechoslovakia ami Poland all the world may perceive what a European commonwealth constituted by Germany would amount to and it must, lie regarded as extremely fortunate that the Nazi dictatorship has much poorer prospects now of extending its authority and oppression throughout Europe than it had even at the time when the German-Soviet pact was concluded. The principal immediate area of German failure no doubt is the Baltic, where the Reich now takes such a poor second place to its Muscovite partner, but Herr von Papen has his own record of failure as German Ambassador to Turkey. It is not long since the conclusion of the Anglo-Ereneh-Tnrkish pact sent Herr von Papejy hurrying back Io Berlin to report on what is generally regarded as a serious blow to German diplomacy in South-Eastern Europe.

It has been said that the principal purpose of the pact between the Allies and Turkey was to establish safeguards against possible aggression by the Axis Powers, and that the pact is likely to serve its intended purpose is seen not least notably in the fact that Italy has manifested of lale a decided inclination to support Balkan independence instead of threatening it. A true, if tentative, approach to the establishment of a European commonwealth is seen in the efforts tin 1 Balkan States are now making to compose their differences one with another and to form a strong neutral bloc which would have the full sympathy and support of Britain and Prance. If there is any sincerity in the observations by Herr von Papen now reported, it must be supposed that his egregious failure as a diplomat is accompanied by an equal failure to perceive and appreciate a trend of events, not least in the area with which he is immediately concerned, that runs diametrically counter to Iris expressed hopes