Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1941. POLICY AFTER THE WAR.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1941. POLICY AFTER THE WAR.

JjJVEN in these days of desperate conflict and with the brute force of Axis aggression far from having been broken, it is right and very necessary that thought should lie given to such problems of after-war policy as were dealt with by the British Foreign Secretary, Air Anthony Eden, in an address reported yesterday. Greater even than the deadliest dangers which our own nation and others are now facing in armed conflict would be Hie danger of failing to make all the preparation that is possible to deal constructively with peace when it returns. It is easy enough now to perceive that after lhe war of 1!J14-LS there was in lhe belligerent nations and others a slackening of moral fibre and resolution and a collapse of practical initiative which go far Io account for all that has happened since—even for the development of Hitlerism. Affairs must not again take a similar course if civilisation is to be safeguarded even to a. reasonable extent and preserved for better and nobler growth as time goes on. The primary condition of the re-establishment of freedom and of all that, makes for a worthy expansion and development of human life is the smashing and destruction of Hitlerism and its associated forces of rampant evil. When the wrecking has been accomplished, however, building must follow, and must follow quickly if it is to prosper and succeed. Air Eden’s speech is to be welcomed as an unqualified recognition by a responsible British statesman that the task of after-war reconstruction cannot become, for Britain and the British Empire, an internal problem. ■ but must be dealt with as a world problem. The British aim, Mr Eden declared, would be to free the post-war world from want. Having said that only the countries of the British Empire, their allies, the United Stales and South America wen 1 in a position to carry out a policy of reconstruction, he added that when peace came Britain should make such relaxations of her war time financial arrangements as would permit the revival of international trade on the widest possible basis. He hoped to see the development of a system of international exchange in which the pledging of goods and services would be the central feature. The liberated countries, and maybe cithers, would require an initial pooling of resources to carry them through the transitional period. This, with more that Air Eden had to say in elaborating his theme, may be accepted as an outline of lhe work that waits when Nazism and al! that it stands for have been laid in the dust. Bold planning and action will be needed Io prevent frightful conditions of economic disorder and distress extending and continuing in the countries which the totalitarian aggressors have despoiled and wrecked, and not improbably in the totalitarian countries themselves. Order, security and unimpeded effort will constitute between them the key to the re-estahlish-ment of European and -world civilisation. There must be positive safeguards against another outbreak' of the ferocity that appears to be latent in the German nation and these safeguards can hardly be provided otherwise, at a short view, than in lhe organisation of a League of Nations worthy of the name—a League in which it may be hoped jhal lhe United States, after this war, will take its full place and part. Nothing less will, give lasting security to the world, however, than a remodelling of the life of nations and of their relationship one with another. It is vital that the democracies now engaged in a life ami death struggle should be prepared to deal in practical fashion with these problems when Nazism has been overthrown and destroyed. Quick measures of aid which will not pile impossible mountains of debt on nations in need must, take a leading place in after-war policy. At Hie same time, there must be no question of highly industrialised nations seeking to extend their trade in a spirit and from a standpoint of exploitation. Air Eden spoke of the revival of international trade on the widest possible basis, bid he said also: — We have learnt the lesson of the interval between two wars and we know that there is no escape from the curse that has been lying upon Europe except by the creation and preservation of economic wealth in every country. Trade that is mutually advantageous to the countries that engage in it cannot be encouraged too freely, bid it is a vital condition of economic recovery, social betterment and future peace that the people of every country should be free to labour lor their own advancement and the satisfaction of their needs and should not be cast into idleness and penury because Hi is or that product is not wanted on world markets. 11. is the great underlying condition of future world peace and prosperity, and ol greater things lor which these will provide a foundation, that policy in each individual country should look primarily to the true welfare of' lhe rank and file population of that country. Li the post-war world there must bo a complete reversal ol the fiendish policy under which Hitlerism seeks to make other races slaves to lhe German race, and’in a very considerable measure has done so for the time being. THE INCONSISTENT DARLAN.

jY? k reckless talker and maker o! wildly inconsistent statements, the Vichy Vice-Premier, Admiral Darlan, would take a o’ood deal of beating. In a cablegram received yesterday, lie was reported as declaring that’: ‘’Britain instigated this war.” Apart from the manifest absurdity of this charge agaiiist a nation which, in face of the moulding menace of Hitlerism, carried relative disarmament to a point of ri'ckless folly, it may be remembered that only about a week ago, in a broadcast Io the French nation. Admiral Darlan told lhe plain truth about the genesis of the present war. Germany, lie said on that occasion, “had started the war on her own and considered she was capable of finishing it on her own.” That Admiral Darlan should make mouth wild charges against Britain (eating his own recent words in doing so) need concern no one ov(‘rmii(di, hut il is a matter for profound regret and uneasiness that a man of this type should be an influential member id' lhe oidv Government that conquered France can boast. The disclosed character of Admiral Darlan goes far to account for the fad that the Vichy administration has become a mere puppet dancing at the will of the Nazis. It is unfortunately clear that bombas' tic assurances by Admiral Darlan as to the sanctity o|' Hie French fleet and colonies are worth very little indeed.