CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 234, 30 September 1908, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE.

» IMPORTS IN EXCESS OF EXPORTS. (To the Editor.) Sir, —Your correspondent, "H.J.," evinces anxiety that the imports of the Dominion should exceed the exports. This is an habitual fallacy very difficult to controvert. All trade is but the exchange of commodity for commodity, and as no nation will send us goods for nothing, we must be producing sufficient wealth to pay for increased imports. The idea that the more a country sends away and the less it brings in is a prosperous condition of affairs is the very reverse to what an individual considers in his own trade transactions. His exertions will generally be governed by the recompense he expects to receive —he will give as little as he can and bargain for as much na possible in return. Your correspondent also mentions that money is tight. Quite so! but that has not been caused by mere fluctuations iv exchange, but by a check to production dealt by economic rent being forced to an unstable height, and its reaction to return to its normal level again. This economic rent is inexorable, it will not be conjured with!—l am, etc.. UNIT.