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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 24, 1984
PAGE 7
while exerting what influence they can in what the TIMES of London called
"the subterranean struggle for the soul of Russia."
The February 14
FINANCIAL TIMES added this:
Mr. Chernenko appears to have been chosen to hold the ring while
younger men gain more experience and support. It would be easy
to dismiss his selection as a symbol of the lack of imagination
and resistance to change of the aging Kremlin power brokers. It
certainly reflects the strength of opposition, at this stage, to
the appointment of younger men who could be expected to hold
power for a decade or more and really set their stamp on this
vast, unwieldly multinational empire and world power....
The selection of Mr. Chernenko•..ensures continuity and..•means
that the younger men can be advised and watched as they groom
themselves for the eventual and unavoidable generation change.
Above all, perhaps, the choice of Mr. Chernenko provides a
breathing space, time in which to complete a review of Soviet
domestic and foreign policy objectives.
Western Europe: The "British Disease" Takes Hold
It is not only in Eastern Europe where the economic future seems bleak. The
once proud industrial powers of Western Europe also are afflicted with
long-term prospects of little growth.
The following article by Brian
Reading in the SUNDAY TIMES (London) of February 5 shows how far the
economies of free Europe have slipped in recent years.
Looking back, what strikes me most is the relative decline of
Britain and Western Europe these past 14 years. In 1970, the 10
countries which now comprise the European community had a
combined gross national product equal to the United States, and
more than twice the size of the 10 major Pacific-basin economies
--Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia,
Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. Today the EEC has
contracted to 93 percent of America's GNP and the Pacific 10 have
expanded to 62 percent. From less than half of us, they have
grown to two-thirds our size.
They will easily overtake us
before this century is over.
The economic centre of gravity of the free world is moving from
mla-Atlant1c to mid-Pacific.
Since the second oil crisT's':'"
Western Europehas suffered its worst slump for more than SO
years.... Recovery is at a snail's pace, or still over the
horizon.
Whereas the Pacific has sailed through this latest
world recession with hardly a pause and America is pulling out of
it like an express train, somehow we in Europe have not come to
terms with the shocks of the past decade--floating exchange
rates, oil price hikes, monetarism and the microchip.
In Britain, of course, we are used to comtemplating decline. In
the late 1970s, as America's smoke-stack industries ran into
trouble, we remarked, sometimes with relish, that the United
States had contracted the British disease too. We were wrong.
The American economy has shaken off its industrial past and,
along with the Pacific countries, is leading the new industrial