EXCHANGE AND OTHER THINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 30, 6 February 1933, Page 9

EXCHANGE AND OTHER THINGS.

Thinking, with a good many others, that a policy of high exchange would permanently raise the cost of living, I consulted Australian statistics for September, 1932 (the latest issue available, pp. 76-80). A study of the tables reveals that to the third quarter of 1932 price indexes for food, groceries and housing have receded for all States, but especially for N.S.W. and Victoria. There was a check to this recession for the period immediately following the devaluation of the currency. One would have more respect for the views of business men in general if they evinced by their statements a greater knowledge of affairs and facts outside the immediate purview of their own businesses. It would be interesting to know how they consider they would be able to carry on if export trade were .to fall away seriously, or if they imagine that the export farmer, who first felt the full blast of the economic blizzard, can continue to carry the heavy load due to protective "inflation" at a-.time like this without some counterbalancing protection. They claim that a "bonus" wouldbe the better way, but there can hardly be any doubt that a bonus, which would give the farmer (or his finances) the same relief as exchange would have evoked an even louder fury of denunciation. One has only to remember the noise and "sob-stuff" put up by the urban local bodies when the Unemployment Board proposed to send married men to camp. Up t° that time and even up to now, only an insignificant part of the board's fund has been expended in outside country districts, but on. the other hand, over three millions per. annum is being wasted in economically useless works around the cities. The complacency with which such waste is viewed by them and by chambers of . commerce must cast grave suspicion on their concern for the national welfare. By- the way, an investigation of the labour costs of such work as has been done round the city would discloso that generally it was from two to five times as expensive as that done with similar labour by the much-criti-cised P.W.D., local bodies having "fallen down" in the matter of supervision and control. It is just about time that the business men realised that this country has been running to fat on loans and ■protection. This fat is mainly represented by over-capitalisation of city development, and inflation of land values, and it will have to be worked or sweated off before we can become Tit to progress. Anyhow, business men should give some attention to the logic of facts and not be carried away by hysteria and "ballyhoo." AGAMEMNON.