Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 30, 1943. MUTUAL AID ON THE GRAND SCALE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 30, 1943. MUTUAL AID ON THE GRAND SCALE.

JN his survey and explanation, in the House of Representatives hist evening, of lease-lend policy, the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) cast informative light' on what may be classed without exaggeration as the grandest development of mutual aid and co-operation between nations the world has yet seen. As it originated at the initiative and under the leadership of President Roosevelt and as it has developed and is now operating in the pooling of resources by the United Nations against their common enemies, the lease-lend policy sets a new standard in human relationships. That it strengthens the democracies enormously in their combined war effort is self-evident. That it will permanently and decisively influence or determine the relationship between nations, in economic and other affairs, when victory has been won and as time goes on, is very much to be desired, but is not yet to be taken for granted.

It is, however, to be recognised and emphasised that the pooling of material resources in an unprecedented emergency of war which has been achieved under the lease-lend programme was made possible by a pooling of moral resources, the outcome of a great moral awakening. It would be a tragedy for mankind if what is essential in this moral awakening and the ampler enlightenment it connotes were allowed to fade with the passing of the emergency of war. So far as the material factors involved in lease-lend policy are concerned, various x adjustments evidently will be necessary, at the end of the war and afterwards. In bald terms the existing arrangement is simply that each participating nation shall put what it can into the cominon pool of resources available for the prosecution of the war and shall as far as possible be supplied from that pool with what it needs in its capacity as a belligerent.

This arrangement no doubt will terminate with the war and according to Mr. Nash, whose view appears to be supported by the relevant clauses he quoted from the agreement between the United States and Great Britain, it will terminate without any question of balancing payments by one nation to another. There is provision, that war materia] which has not been used may be recovered by the nation which supplied it, but payment in the ordinary conditions of commercial dealing is not provided for.

Associated with the. lease-lend agreement, however, are broad undertakings relating to the conduct of future international trade —undertakings closely in harmony with the terms of the Atlantic Charter, of which the fourth and fifth articles read as follow:—

Fourth: They will endeavour', with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.

Fifth: They desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labour standards, economic adjustment and social security.

An approach to these objectives evidently must be made in conditions altogether different, from those ruling under the lease-lend policy. What is contemplated in regard to the future development of international trade is not a pooling of resources, but equality of access and opportunity.

Great possibilities of mutual advantage will be opened up, however, if nations great and small will agree, subject to such abnormal factors as the special needs of impoverished and debtor nations, to conduct two-way trade on an equitable basis —accepting payment in goods and services for the goods and services they sell. Broad agreement on these lines would continue worthily the spirit of“the lease-lend policy, and would open up prospects of great and lasting benefit to all nations,

The problems involved will call for ■earnest continuing study, not least in countries like New Zealand. Meantime it seems wholly improbable, as was observed in last night’s debate in the House of Representatives, that any peremptory demand will arise for the abandonment of British Imperial preference or that this country will be asked to destroy industries which it must on the contrary develop and expand if it is to increase its population as it should.