TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 257, 31 October 1933, Page 6

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

DEPRESSION BOOKS. (By PRO BONO PUBLICO.) A correspondent lias asked me if I could recommend a short course of reading that would "enable a man of average intelligence to understand the reason for the economic crisis and the measures necessary for recovery. It is a very natural request, but not one that I can answer in the affirmative. So far I have not across any single book, or any half-dozen books giving a really satisfactory survey ol the position. I sent this request on to a city man Nvhose reading is far wider than mine can possibly be, and whose judgment is pretty sound. His reply is rather surprising. "Your correspondent will get as much instruction from G. H. D. Cole as from anyone," he writes, "provided you can trust him not to be carried awav by Cole's enthusiasms." The real difficulty in advising a course of reading is that necessarily it would have to be in English, and most of the leading British economists seem to be inflationists, or "reflationists," and the others are occupied rather in tearing the inflationists to pieces than in analysing the position afresh. Then, too, they all have their special enthusiasms, and the ine<-itaible effect of a course of reading among the English economists is to give the reader the impression that the crisis is wholly or essentially a. monetary one. The Continental economists are not by any means as sure of the causes of the crisis as the British, and some of them have raised shrewd issues. Some of them argue that fallinr» prices were the result of tho crisis, not the cause of it. Some of them even argue that stable prices are iiot desirable in themselves. On the whole, it seems that optimism is prevalent in England and pessimism on the Continent. There is an opportunity for some clever New Zealander, without too many prejudices, to make a name for himself 'by examining the course of the depression in New Zealand. We have a fairly isolated community, mainly dependent on primary industries, but also carrying on some secondary industries. There are "no "very complicated problems to be discussed, and consequently a study of our economic history during the past few years might lead to some very useful and important conclusions.

By way of illustration, one might point to the effects of the depreciation of our currency. This has not yet solved our main problem, and does not seem likely to do so. It is clear that other measures, are needed, and that they will not be exclusively, perhaps not chiefly, monetary measures. To return to the original question, I cannot accept the invitation to recommend a short course of reading. There is no satisfactory "short" course, because, to start with, essential books, like Keynes' "Treatise on Money," Haw trey's "Art of- Central Banking," Salter's "Recovery," and the like, arc not short books. And, of course, there never is a short cut to really useful knowledge. I may add that the "Economist," in a recent article on the "Literature of the Crisis," names about forty different works — all important in their way.