THE OLD ORDER CHANGING: What Will Be The New?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 31, 26 January 1940, Page 8

THE OLD ORDER CHANGING: What Will Be The New?

Journalist Sees Difficult Stocktaking Ahead O} Troubled World

Among all the uncertainties of " civilised" life in 1940, Marc T. Greene, globe-trotting American journalist, sees only one thing certain: When the time for stocktaking does finally come, the task will be a difficult one. Nothing is sure, he thinks, but that the old order is changing, must change, and that if there is to be a new order in its place, instead of anarchy, there will have to be a complete reorientation of the old world’s values. URING the last war, Mare T. Greene was in the United States Navy. After the war he entered the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, and stayed in that service until he decided after four years to return to journalism. Since then he has been six times round the world: sometimes as permanent correspondent of such papers as the Christian Science Monitor, sometimes ‘working for a chain of newspapers, sometimes freelancing. He was in China when the civil war started, and has followed the rise to power of Chiang Kai Shek. He has become intimately familiar with the balancing of power in Japan. He was in Spain at the right moment, in Greece when the King returned, here when this happened, there when that happened. Lately he has been in Tahiti, but the war has brought him out again, and he will be leaving New Zealand soon to get back among the events of the century. No optimistic answer came when The Listener asked for his opinion of the future of the Old World as an American, able to view Europe with some impartiality, some detachment. No Guns, No Butter When the war ended-he did not suggest that it would ever be "won" or "lost "-he saw armies of millions of men, marching back through battle-scarred country to battle-ruined homes. The economy of guns instead of butter would no longer be working. There would be no guns, and no butter. No longer would surplus labour be absorbed by munitions factories or the nations’ armies. No longer would any one nation be united inside itself by the urge to attack nations outside its boundaries, or defend itself against real or fancied aggression from outside. There would be starvation, and the human animal had a way of reacting unfavourably when its food was short. There would be immense economic problems, insoluble by the greatest wizards the existing system had produced. There would be flarings of discontent, spasmodic or organised rebellions.

There would be vast regiments of unemployed looking for leadership in a time when leadership would be dangerous and difficult, or looking for work from industries disorganised at the best, or completely crippled. What Will America Do? "As for what I would do about it: that is a matter for myself. For publication, I can only say what I know to be possible from the facts." Would Mr. Greene suggest that America, out of the war, might remain to give a lead this time as she attempted to give a lead last time? _ That was possible, but Mr. Greene pointed to America’s own difficulties. Just how the war would afféct*her economy was hard to say. Obviously, the

expected wartime boom had not eventuated. Steel shares had risen, but were now going back slightly. Aircraft manufacturing company shares had risen substantially. For the rest, America did not seem likely to benefit materially, and might probably suffer with the rest as the profit system crashed around the marching armies. He could not say for certain, for he had not been in the U.S.A. for two years, and was out of direct touch with the facts; but he believed America had her own troubles. There was the ridiculous situation of millions of dollars worth of gold lying idle in a hole in the ground. There was the situation of a liberal leader attempting to make his reforms within the framework of the existing monetary system. Roosevelt had tried to "chase the money changers from the temple.’ Unlike Woodrow Wilson, he had worked with Congress, in the main, behind him. The money changers had run, for a little while. Now they were coming back, or were back already. Parallel with New Zealand A parallel. with the situation in New Zealand was drawn by Mr. Greene. Here, he thought, a similar situation had arisen. Liberal leaders were

trying to bring about great reforms within and as part of the system they were trying to improve. Here, as in America, great forces were being held or loosened, and who was to say that any man knew what those forces would do; whether they could be controlled, or whether they would run away with minds not great enough to control them? Perhaps the Old World could turn to the New for a lead, when at last it had exhausted itself through war. Perhaps... "JT am not an alarmist. The last thing I want to be thought is a Bolshevik, or any sort of extremist. These are simply things as I see them, and I cannot see any prospect for hope other than a complete reorientation of the old values." Japan and the East Never at a loss on any subject, Mr. Greene turned easily from the West to the East, There could be no doubt, he said, that Japan, "divinely inspired" by the traditions of the Shogunate and the Samurai, was applying, or trying to apply in the Pacific and the Orient, a sort of extended Monroe Doctrine. Mr. Greene disagreed with this suggested term. The Monroe Doctrine was. a defensive measure, he argued, whereas Japan’s doctrine of power was an aggressive doctrine, based to a large extent on the theory of invincibility held by the "bold and bumptious" army class. "Like Hitting a Sponge " The conquest of China had been planned as a first step in a campaign covering the entire Orient. But Japan had found she was hitting a sponge. She could attack, and advance, but as she advanced the sponge closed about her, and if she retreated the sponge resumed its normal form. Exhausted by years of unsatisfactory warfare, it had lately seemed as if Japan was hoping to "taper off" her China offensive. To make the retreat seem right and honourable, she was attempting to establish a puppet government, which might, unfortunately, be recognised by other powers, for the sake of peace. The meaning of the recent Japanese Cabinet changes, from the "diplomatic" section to the " militaristic " section of the ruling classes, was difficult to see in the light of this policy. Undoubtedly the withdrawal of outside interests, busy elsewhere, had left Japan looking more than ever like a very secondclass military power. Japanese militarism was too blindly bumptious to realise this, but the few big financial houses, at least, must have learnt by now that war in China was profitless, that Japan was near ruin, and that it was time to bow and depart. In any case, China could not be conquered. Here, again, the economic consideration was the deciding factor. The Japanese would fight till they starved; but they would starve sooner or later, Feeding the Multitude In Europe the same applied. Germany would not collapse, especially now that the people were more than ever behind their Leader, when it seemed to them that their nation was menaced on all sides, Germany was, is, and would be always a formidable opponent. But talk of opponents was beside the point. Talk of armies and aeroplanes and submarines was irrelevant, beside the all-determining influence of economy; not national economy, but international economy. And economy sooner or later reduced itself to the common factor of filling the bellies of millions, irrespective of filling the vaults of the few.