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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
SUNDAY, MAY 3, 1942
The KANSAN Comments...
Economics and Peace
R. S. HOWEY Professor of Economics
The economic problems that may confront us when the war ends are shadowy and trivial in comparison with today's distinct and urgent questions. It may be excusable, however, to notice one post-war issue, since everyone can understand its importance better now than they can after peace comes. This is the problem of security from militant foreign powers.
Three proposed avenues to national security have, in some degree, an economic foundation. Each of the three is subject to Burns' qualification of the success of plans. Each has, in addition, its individual limitations.
The first plan is to arm the United States so well that no combination of nations can risk a war against us. It proposes a Roman peace, with ourselves as the Romans. From our viewpoint a peace of this kind is as good as any other, but it must be granted that the other nations of the world would have grounds for objection. Strictly speaking, the plan for peace through military strength is not an economic plan. But the possibility for its adoption certainly rests on the greatness of our economic resources.
A peace enforced by the army and navy of the United States ought to appeal to all who are discouraged with the prospect that international agreement can succeed. Perhaps it has even a wider support, for surveys of public opinion last month revealed that half the people desired a peace policed either by the United States alone, or by the United States in conjunction with some other power.
To other Americans a policed peace doubtless appears to be no solution at all, for it resembles a peace stripped of benefits. Peace benefits apparently are partly lost if we continue to be saddled with the cost of armament. The cost of armament, however, can be exaggerated. In the state of our present knowledge, and especially considering the temper of our known disposition toward governmental expenditures, spending heavily for the military establishment may be the single open road to full employment. In short, we may have no smaller consumption if our military expenses are large than if they are small.
A graver fault is the instability of the plan. As was said before, other nations can not be expected to applaud the plan. In fact it will be inaugurated, if at all, in the face of their determined opposition. Since there are other areas as rich as the United States a continual watchfulness must be maintained lest the nations of that area attempt to appropriate the police power for themselves.
The second proposal differs radically from the idea of a Roman peace, for it is based on weakness rather than strength. It is the Cobden-Bright plan, discussed in the last half of the nineteenth century and discarded on a priori grounds in the twentieth. If it attained its end, nations would become so dependent on each other that war would be impossible. Every country would produce only those goods that their location and history best equipped them to produce, and import from abroad the goods that could best be produced elsewhere. As a consequence, any one nation, cut off from the rest of the world, would be too weak to fight.
The specialization, the increased international trade, and the resulting interdependence of nations will follow as a matter of course when nations remove the tariffs that hinder the international flow of goods. Thus peace and "free trade" come from the same reform.
The Cobden-Bright plan, if it lived up to the expectations of its authors, would have the added advantage that, in addition to preventing war, it would also increase the consumer goods that the people of all nations could enjoy. But the possibility that it could prevent war may be more limited than its advocates think since, even were the division of labor carried to the limit, the independence, and thus the dangerousness, of several fortunately endowed nations would still be considerable-
For a fair trial of the plan it is necessary that, without important exception, all nations break down their tariff walls. But there is nothing in the recent history of nations to indicate that they intend to remove a single stone. When the war is over it is more likely that every nation will have higher trade barriers than before.
The next method is not so much a plan as it is a suggestion that, if the economic state of affairs in the world is favorable, war will be unlikely. The favorable state is found when all nations arrange their affairs so that they keep their populations fully employed with the production of goods during periods of peace.
Any fully employed country that diverts its productive resources from the production of consumers goods to the production of war goods must knowingly suffer a hardship. To beat plowshares into swords when the plows are being used is more difficult than when they are idle. Had Germany been utilizing her productive equipment fully in 1933, rearmament might not have taken place.
The outlook for eternal peace based on continual full employment is not bright. But the prospect is brighter for a short period of time. When peace comes, enough investment opportunities will be present to sustain a fairly high level of employment for perhaps a decade. A decade is not a long time, but even a decade of peace is worthwhile.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 39 Sunday, May 3, 1942 No. 130
Notices due at News Bureau, 8 Journalism, at 10 a.m. on day of publication during the week, and at 11 a.m. on Saturday for Sunday issue.
Students who have taken the courses in Home Nursing and Child Care are eligible for Red Cross Certificates in Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick. Former students who are interested should make inquiry at the office of the Department of Home Economics, Room 104, Fraser hall.
The Mother's Club of Alpha Delta Pi will meet tomorrow evening at 8 o'clock at the home of Mrs. J. R. Edmonds, 1546 Rhode Island.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Publisher ... Kenneth Jackson
NEWS STAFF
Managing editor ... Floyd Decaire
Campus editors ... Charles Pearson,
Ralph Coldren, Joy Miller, Bob Coleman
Sunday editor
Blair Feeney
Sports editor
Alan Houtton
Society editor
Ruth Beeler
News editor
Virginia Tieman
Rock Chalk Talk DEAN SIMS
With the prettiest shiner this department has viewed in years, Bette Brooks, Gamma Phi freshman from Houston, Texas, stepped out of the University hospital early yesterday morning.
Said Bette, with her characteristic deep southern accent;
"Ah'm so embarrassed, Ah can ha'dly speak."
--many gifts. We send several dozen roses—but they are only 20 cents a dozen," he added.
Incidentally, the black eye came about when she was struck in the eye with a wooden sword at the riding demonstration held Friday evening at the intramural field.
Sigma Phi Epsilon freshmen turned the tables on traditional activity yesterday morning and compelled the active chapter to clean up the house while they sat contentedly by and caught up on their resting. It came about in connection with the University's celebration of Parents' Day—some of the freshmen, thinking they had motherly instincts, decided to take a holiday too.
Recently Lila May Reetz, freshman in the Kwahyaj house and secretary in the petroleum engineering department, typed out a letter dictated to her by one of the professors. Part of the dictation went: "I lost my shirt in the oil business."
What Miss Reetz wrote was, "I lost my shorts in the oil business." What the astounded recipient of the letter must have thought.
Millard Aldridge, business junior from Ellinwood and a member of A. K. Psi, has the reputation as being the "hardest man to jar out of bed in the house."
Friday morning a telephone call was received at the house for Millard- it was his No.1 co-ed calling.
They aroused him and told him who it was.
"Tell her to call me back," he snored and went back to sleep.
The A. K. Psi's think it's wonderful to have a man around the house who can so nonchalantly handle the opposite sex and still get a date so often.
Coke Dates Are Novel To Chilean Student at K.U.
Not only do the yankee girls, as Marmaduke calls them, lack such frequent presents, but also the respect that is due them. It is questionable, however, if they have not developed the attitude themselves. In his estimation the co-eds are more friendly and serve as comrades to the masculine race. A theoretical equality exists with frankness and honesty predominant.
BY MICKEY ROWSEY
"In Chile our pocket book suffers because of a girl's name," commented Marmaduke Grove, Delta Upsilon and civil engineer graduate student from Santiago. "My people are conscientious of their religion, and they celebrate many saints days such as St. Mary or St. Helen. Any acquaintance bearing one of these names entertains for her friends and in return receives many gifts. We send several $
"Yankee football and English soccer make up our sport program, with horse racing the major entertainer. Baseball is known only in the United States and Japan," stated Marmaduke. "There is a lack of college spirit because of an unorganized college schedule. The three Universities are made up of separate buildings scattered over the city, and all campus life is extinct."
European customs influence the dress in Chile, stated Marmaduke. The feminine attire consists of semidress clothes and French heels. Long coats are uncommon, and although the handsome, dark haired foreigner has been in America since fall, he has not become accustomed to them as yet.
"Coke dates do not exist, and our social life is much different in Chile," said Marmaduke. "Our big meal is at noon with tea at five and the evening meal at nine thirty. Large parties are arranged by the families, and the young people meet at them. If a male is interested he suggests a movie date or arranges a second meeting at a future party.
"My dream castle has been to study in the United States, and I would like to remain here and travel to view the opportunities offered to me. For that reason my plans are indefinite, and I do not know when I shall return to my country," concluded Marmaduke.
America may offer much, but if all the men in Chile are like Marmaduke, it in return would offer even more to the North American girls.
Chaperones are not commonly required as Americans believe. Another false idea is that Chile is all desert, for this is true of less than one third of the country," explained Marmaduke.
Shelter Foot Is Newest Of War Ailments
Dr. Raymond Greene, of London, writing in Modern Medicine magazine, describes the ailment as a civilian's disease, "most frequently noted among persons who have spent a night in a sitting position during an air raid warning" without compensating rest in a horizontal position
Minneapolis, Minn. — (UP) — The air raid shelter is blamed by a London physician for one of the newest orthopedic ailments—"shelter foot."
"Persons who have used deck chairs, the wooden bars of which have exerted prolonged pressure on the knee pits and cut off circulation, are most often victims," he explains; "Main symptoms are a swelling which extends up the leg, ultimate pain, and in some instances, the skin becomes red and shiny."