"Economic Pacification"

The dramatic lead toward abolition of trade quotas, reduction of tariffs and relaxation of exchange controls given by Socialist French Premier Leon Blum and Fascist Italian Premier Benito Mussolini (TIME, Oct. 12) stirred statesmen of the League of Nations last week to action under a new slogan: ECONOMIC PACIFICATION.

At Geneva British Delegate Mr. William Shepherd Morrison said of Economic Pacification: "We are likely to prefer--it is our British way--a pragmatic and practical approach, slow but sure." This, however, is not the Australian way, and that Dominion's vigorous representative, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, roundly declared to the Assembly's Economic Committee: "The progress of Science in the last 15 years has made possible efforts of production which would enable a higher standard of living to be reached than anything known in the past. Yet, because of the economic conditions prevailing in the world today, it is impossible for its people to enjoy that higher standard. If we delay too long in making these benefits available to the masses of the people, they will revolt!" As rapidly as possible the League last week produced and approved a resolution urging all States represented in Geneva to follow the Latin lead toward Economic Disarmament. In addition to a return to Free Trade in the not too distant future, Geneva statesmen spoke hopefully of a return to the Gold Standard at present devalued monetary levels. In this they were encouraged by the annual Mansion House speech to the Lord Mayor of London and the city's leading bankers delivered last week by Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain. "The decision of France to readjust the value of the franc," said Mr. Chamberlain, "must have come like the cracking of the ice at the approach of a warmer season to a polar explorer whose ship has been frozen for months into immobility. ... If we can prevent violent fluctuations of the valuation of gold as ex pressed in terms of commodities, I see no insuperable obstacles in the way of our ultimately arriving at a currency system based on free exchange of gold. . . . We will probably come back to an international monetary standard on the only basis which appears to give general confidence." At this Britain's bankers cheered lustily and with unwonted enthusiasm Governor Montagu Collet Norman of the Bank of England pledged to Mr. Chamberlain that, if only the British Cabinet will adopt a policy of letting British bankers know what they want done instead of keeping them in the dark, "the Government will at all times find us willing, with good will and loyalty, to do what they direct as though we were under legal compulsion." Meanwhile last week the tiny Papal State, the small Kingdom of Albania and the minute Republic of San Marino devalued their currencies in step with the Italian lira. In Berlin persistent rumors had Realmleader Adolf Hitler "greatly annoyed because Reichsbank President Dr.

Hjalmar Schacht on his recent European tour did not discover the secret that France was about to devalue the franc with U. S. and British co-operation and that this would be followed by devaluation of the lira, Swiss franc, Dutch guilder, etc. Had Germany known what was coming, Dictator Hitler might have managed to join in and tell the German people that their mark was being devalued in an international concert of Economic Disarmament to which the Fatherland had been admitted with "equality" and "honor." Instead, according to Berlin observers, Herr Hitler felt last week that Dr. Schacht had permitted the Reich to be left momentarily high & dry with the mark overvalued and no way of devaluing it without losing Nazi face before the German people.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.