RAW MATERIAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1940, Page 9

RAW MATERIAL

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION UNIVERSAL PROBLEM. OPINION IN UNITED STATES. Of peace plans at the present time there is no end states William Tandell Elliott. Professor of Government, Havard University. Every outstanding American publicist has had something to say on the subject, and there is a legion of our Britisn friends who are interested in sounding out American opinion on this important matter. There is little doubt from popular polls and otherwise that we Americans hope, and on the whole expect, a victory for the forces that are opposing Hitler, and that we are perturbed by the possibility of Stalin’s making this a real world war.

It seems legitimate in any case for Americans to ask themselves the question: What sort of a peace would have the moral support of the United States? It is a matter of grave concern to find the conditions of a lasting peace if the world is to recover from the chaos that threatens civilisation. Any sort of planning of the political outlines that are to follow the peace settlement would certainly be premature until the outcome is more certain and the character and extent of the forces involved better able to be gauged. But in the economic realm history has been sufficiently clear to indicate some lines of approach to the problem of creating a more workable distribution of the world's natural resources.

The problem of raw materials has been exaggerated in its importance by the desire of all nations to become secure in their war potentials. Economic self-sufficiency and the race for armament supremacy have aided in breaking down the normal exchange under which commodities might be freely acquired in a world market.

But this is not the whole of the story. It is certainly true that barriers to international trade had grown to great heights even before the threat of war became imminent. It is equally true that administrative restrictions and commodity control schemes had seriously interfered with the ability of some nations to procure the raw materials for peaceful development and the trade outlets which would make them able to exchange goods in payment. A great deal of thought, therefore, is being devoted to creating some sort of an international organisation in the economic realm that will parallel the work already being done by the International Labour Organisation and permit really free access to raw materials, particularly in the colonial areas.

One approach to this problem is suggested by the very nature of existing control schemes like the Tin Association, the Rubber Control scheme, and others of the same type. There a joint producers’ control sponsored and protected by governmental action has brought together the chief producing areas in agreements to allocate produc•tion and to determine within some limits the range of prices. These schemes are manifestly weighted in favour of the producers, though some consumer representation is provided for in a purely advisory capacity. They are also conceived in terms simply of the participation of governments bent on promoting the interests of the producers. One of the first considerations of peace might be the creation of international holding companies in which governments or groups of governments would participate through stock purchases proportionate to their normal need for certain basic raw materials available mainly in colonial areas. Stockholding, to be voted through government participation, would be at least a partial approach to this problem. Presumably the holding companies ought to be located at some central point for clearing common problems, possibly in connection with something like the Bank of International Settlements, or even what remains of the League of Nations or what may be created to take its place at the end of the war. The essential factor of this scheme would be to avoid the reallocation of territories so often discussed in terms of colonial possessions.

The vulnerability of imperialism would be greatly lessened if any joint participation in such international development schemes were possible. Of course, there would be many objections that could be raised and great difficulties would appear in the allocation of quotas. The main control of some of ! the world's raw materials would be held, however, in the British and French Empires and in the territory of the United States. The post-war period might find the United States in a very strong position to assist in any such move toward a freer and more equitable participation in the uses of the basic raw materials. This would probably occur through the necessity of putting some of their securities on the market by the French and British Governments in order to have adequate foreign exchange for their wartime purchasing programmes. Thus might be secured a participation by the United States in these areas that would make such an arrangement practical. The success of any such scheme would depend upon several factors. Primarily it would depend upon the willingness of the governments involved to view this problem of raw materials in a new and different light. The United States is. on the whole, consumer conscious and so are its business interests in respect to most colonial raw materials. The British Government might emerge from the war in a radically different frame of mind as well as in a different economic position. But it would be equally essential to have the Hull programme for freeing the channels of world trade more adequately fulfilled than it has been up to the present time. In the last analysis, only through freer exchange of goods can raw materials be paid for in a trading world.

Economic sanctions would be much more easily available if the basic strategic minerals were internationally controlled in allocation for peace purposes. Conceivably the quotas allotted would not permit armament expansions. Participation might actually be revoked if aggressive rearmament were undertaken by any power or set of powers.