Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, DEC. 22, 1932. MR HOOVER’S MESSAGE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 22, 22 December 1932, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, DEC. 22, 1932. MR HOOVER’S MESSAGE.

The desire to co-operate with, the President-elect (Mr E. D. Roosevelt) has been expressed by Mr Hoover in the course of a message to Congress dealing with war debts and cognate subjects. He wishes to acliieve continuity of policy in relation to the United States’s foreign affairs. At present the 72nd Congress is in its final session. This the Americans generally call the “lame duck” session, for the reason that following the elections the members of both Houses, some of whom have been defeated, are content to mark time in the transaction of political business. The retiring President has no desire to commit his successor, while the Congressmen who have been denied their wish to return as the nation’s legislators as a general rule have little interest m the programme of business. In the present instance, Mr Hoover has been defeated in one of the most sensational elections in the country’s history, and many Republicans both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate will be retiring into private life with their leader after next March. In the normal course of events, they would concern themselves with routine business, but there are outstanding questions which Mr Hoover must attend to—war debts, economic problems and disarmament. The nation having given its support to the Democratic policy, the President proposes that he should co-oper-ate with Mr Roosevelt to secure continuity of policy. The Democratic Leader has already shown an aversion to work on these lines, and the messages from the United States infer that he will take no responsibility before his inauguration as President. Were the matter not so vital to world recovery, it might be possible to accept Mr Roosevelt’s view, but in so grave a crisis his lack of statesmanship calls forth the condemnation of all.

In dealing with war debts Mr Hoover has declared the necessity for him to proceed independently of Congress to set up the machinery for discussion with the nations that have not defaulted. A Commission will be appointed, some of whose members will be delegates to the World Economic Conference, while others will have first hand knowledge and personal contact with the disarmament negotiations. It is a bold movement surely for a President to act independently of Congress, but it has refused to revive the War Debt Commission, and Mr Hoover* has won the plaudits of the British Press for his action. His object is to “interlock” the debt, disarmament, and economic questions so that the three will be solved as if they were the one main problem. This is a marked advance oh the official opinion held a few months ago, which declared that war debts and tariffs would not be discussed by the United States at the World Economic Conference. Mr Hoover’s references to economic problems are interpreted to mean that he is no longer obsessed by the opinion that whatever happens to the rest of the world has no reflex action in the United States. It is not very long since that the

President declared the country would be able to overcome its difficulties no matter what transpired elsewhere. In other words, the view was held—and widely too—in tlio United. States that the nation was self-sufficient. The intensity of the depression has shattered that illusion, and it is for the good of the world that this has happened. The change from the prosperity of three years a°*o m the United States has been astounding. To-day the faimeis are in direful plight, industry is stagnant, and the Treasury is faced with a deficit of extraordinary size. Let in 1928 Mr Hoover declared that poverty would soon be a thing of the past. Now there is steadily developing recognition of the fact that the Republican policy of high tariffs and insistence upon payment of the war debt have been factors in the United States’s difficulties and also the world’s. Mr Hoover may not freely admit this, but the growing l desire to engage m conference with other nations is a healthy sign. The President, it is to be noted, has reiterated his opinion that the debt cannot be cancelled or reduced without “adequate compensation.” The nations of Europe must show willingness to largely reduce their armaments bill. A better spirit in this regard would be of inestimable benefit in solving’ the war debt problem. In the meantime, Mr Hoover has given Mr Roosevelt an admirable opportunity to co-operate with him before he leaves White House in March, and in the interests of world prosperity the Democrats should respond to the invitation.