Inside and Out
INSIDE AND OUT THE world is pooling its well-being to such an ex-tent that the international result of Wall Street's disastrous little game has not gone unnoticed. Indeed some observers have...
...There can be little doubt that both of these sets of circumstances are turning public opinion toward the right, which is a great deal stronger today than a year ago...
...Modern industry has created the firmly interlocking productive community, inside which politics, business and mere psychology cohere in a manner undreamed of years ago...
...For Germany, by way of example, the past months have been far more disturbing than is generally realized...
...Beyond any question the President's star needs a mighty push if it is not to be submerged under a financial debacle, congressional chaos and the insipidities of prohibition enforcement...
...And British Labor, with its back against the wall at home and its hands tied so far as Europe is concerned, may well be facing the coming parley in a mood far different from what prevailed during Mr...
...It is too early to predict that such accord will be manifest, but the signs point that way...
...Henderson's address at Geneva, M. Briand averred that France did not wish to sacrifice any of the sanctions listed in the League covenant- and congratulated the British on the "reasonableness" with which they have met the French conception of naval reform...
...Hoover is naturally very anxious to achieve success in London...
...and the extensiveness of the program of social welfare, which has created so large a volume of health, employment and old-age insurance that the national budget is always strained to the limit...
...The capital ship, its size and numbers, appears to be in for a good many pros and cons, with a divergence between the two nations most interested almost as wide as the Atlantic itself...
...These unfavorable aspects of the German situation are usually attributed by observers to two sets of circumstances: the pressure of reparations collecting, which imposes a tax rate in some respects positively staggering (the levy on even moderate incomes approaches 50 percent) and which, owing to the fact that relief cannot be expected within a reasonable time, engenders a pessimistic outlook...
...Indeed some observers have probably been led to simplify the problem beyond measure, attributing to the gold standard and other factors an unwarranted importance...
...Its rather curious declaration that the Geneva covenant is more important than the Kellogg pact may seem a bit of fantastic legalism, but it can justifiably be read as the manifesto of an alliance which the British and the French have formed prior to the debate about navies...
...But there exists a general feeling that English statesmen are framing their policies far less with an eye to America than with a desire to meet perplexing continental issues...
...Nobody has taken the President's suggestion regarding the abolition of the hunger blockade as seriously as it deserved to be taken, owing very largely to British unwillingness to discuss the theory and principles of the free sea...
...It may help to explain the stand taken by Dr...
...The nation's eagerness for some notable victory in the international terrain is likewise evident...
...The entry of the United States into the World Court, which seemed a matter of course a short time ago, appears to have fallen a victim to some species of traffic tie-up...
...At the same time a flurry in exchange, which temporarily unsettled the mark, aroused great fear lest a new period of inflation with its concomitant disastrous effects, be just outside the door...
...The hiatus between the glamour which attended the signing of the Kellogg treaties and the drab simplicity of what has been accomplished since must impress every observer...
...Supporting Mr...
...It is rather unfortunate that political shadows of this character should fall across a landscape recently so bright with international promise...
...Henderson's speech at the League session is to the point here...
...One hopes for the best...
...At all events, the eve of the London Conference finds the Channel politically far narrower than it has been for some time...
...A considerable number of business failures have been reported there, the effect of which is to intensify the centralization-or, as some would say -the trustification of that nation's enterprise...
...A similar impression is left by the discussion of sea power which has been in progress between London and Paris...
...One judges from reports that some opposition between American and British views of naval strength has developed to a point which foreshadows a tussle at London...
...All of which is regrettable...
...If all this does not mean at least a temporary rapprochement between the two greatest of the former Allies, for the possible edification of those European peoples not wholly satisfied with the status quo, one has missed a guess by some distance...
...Doubtless such a trend would be viewed, is possibly already being viewed, by France and England with alarm...
...Snowden into a very blunt speech...
...MacDonald's visit to these shores...
...Schacht at the Hague, which resulted in shifting responsibility for the Reichsbank's participation in the "world bank" to the German government, and which scared Mr...
...If our prevalent economic philosophy is correct (and it is, at all events, held to be as nearly correct as circumstances permit) the "rationalization" of the world's business and political conduct is an aim never to be kept out of sight...
...To date his activity in the realm of foreign policy has not been fruitful, despite the best intentions in the world...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 13
