WORLD TRANSPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1942, Page 4

WORLD TRANSPORT

CONTROL AFTER THE WAR IMPARTIAL AUTHORITY PROPOSED. BY HIGH AMERICAN OFFICIAL. (By John L. Blackman, Junr., in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) BOSTON, October 7. A proposal for an “impartial international authority” to administer and reorganise the transportation systems of the world after the war was laid before the 29th annual conevntion of the National Foreign Trade Council in Boston today by Wayne Chatfield Taylor, Under-Secretary of Commerce. The plan was sketched in general terms by Mr Taylor, who said, he was not offering it as a “a solution” to the post-war problems of getting supplies lo stricken countries and restoring world-wide trade, but as something for the foreign traders to think about. Among the delegates, it was not believed, however, that a high official of the Federal Government would put forward such a plan in casual fashion, especially when viewed in the light of another statement of Mr Taylor today that “plans must be ready” for the post-war period and “I can assure you that there will be plans.” FROM WAR TO PEACE. In so far as the Commerce Department official outlined his proposal, it called for an international agency i ready to convert the war-time transIportation system of the United Nations into a larger, more cohesive arrangement of ship lines, rail lines, and air lines adapted to the uses of peace. Mr Taylor indicated, that such an agency should serve fife transportation needs of every nation, both small and big, and that its object should be to help put into effect the promises of the Atlantic Charter for a better integrated and more prosperous world. His speech was read at the morning session of the - convention in the ball room of the Hotel Statler, at which other addresses on post-war planning were delivered by J. E. Otterson of New Haven, Conn., Chairman of the American Maritime Council, a privately sponsored organisation of all American shipping interests; Eugene P. Thomas of New York, President of the Foreign Trade Council, and Charles Francis Adams, Boston banker and former Secretary of the Navy, who presided. NEED OF PREPARATION. <’ The plea of Mr Otterson, former manufacturer and motion picture producer, for post-war planning was that “if we are no better prepared for peace than we were for the war we are now fighting, we cannot expect to win the peace very easily.” He urged prepara- . lions now for a great, post-war American merchant marine. Referring to ,the post-war experiences .after the last conflict, Mr Taylor, a former Chicago investment banker and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury undei’ President Roosevelt, described the difficulties of getting food to small countries in .the ’2os despite the desperate needs of the populations. STARVATION & PLENTY. By way of illustration, he related that people in Vienna were starving while surplus wheat was available in near-by Rumania —all because of the breakdown or non-existence of transportation. “How can all the countries be assured after the war, of their share in transportation facilities?” he asked. “How can new and adequate facilities be acquired? Can this be done without the creation of some impartial international authority designed to administer and reorganise existing systems for the benefit of all the countries, and, as soon as possible, plan the reconstruction of the Danube, the Rhine, the Don, the Yangstse, and other regions in relation to each other? “Although many services can be facilitated through the use of airplanes, the everyday existence of the rural population and their trade with industrial centr'es must be by means of roads, railways and waterways. REGULATION OF SHIPPING. “The matter of ocean transportation is also important. When the period'of stress is over, how shall shipping be regulated in order that the various countries shall have the means of transporting their products and of .importing needed goods? Must the foreign trade of a small country suffer because the ships qwned by a more powerful neighbour are used exclusively for the trade of the owning country, without stopping to call at the ports of weaker states? Must every state try to build ships to carry its own commerce. Does the Seventh Declaration of the Atlantic Charter, that the ‘peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance, mean only freedom from hindrance by submarines and searaiders? Could an International Authority administer the shipping lanes ‘to promote mutually advantageous economic relations between them for the betterment of world-wide economic relations?’ ” TRIBUTE TO CANADA. At the luncheon which followed the morning session, more than 700 bankers and foreign traders paid spontaneous tribute to the Canadian war effort at the close of an address by A. McD. Mcßain, chief of the public relation section, Foreign Exchange Control Board, Ottawa, Canada. The American listeners responded to Mr Mcßain’s detailed report of the contributions of Canadian citizens to the war, including personal income taxes of 40 per cent, with a prolonged burst of applause—the first show of enthusiasm at the convention sessions. CO-OPERATION WITH RUSSIA. At the afternoon session tribute was paid America’s Russian ally by Dr Samuel H. Cross, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at Harvard University, who urged that Soviet Russia be given full co-operation not only during the war but after it “Any nation that has' successfully withstood Hitler’s most desperate thrusts deserves more than mere toleration; it deserves understanding and respect,” he said. “Co-operation with the Soviet Union in winning the war means similar and lasting collaboration with the Soviet Union in creating and guaranteeing ultimate peace.”