A MENACE TO SOCIETY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 43, 20 February 1935, Page 6

A MENACE TO SOCIETY.

The recent pepper scandal in Britain and wheat gamble in the U.S.A. raise the question whether it should not be made a criminal offence to attempt to corner the market ill any foodstuff or other necessary commodity. People are sent to gaol for offences which have much less serious effects on the community and nothing lends more support to the statement that "there is "a law for the rich and a law for the poor" than the unrestricted operations of these international gamblers. Neither stabilisation of prices nor industrial recovery is possible while such people are allowed to run amok. In a recent bulletin Professor Warren of the U.S.A. points out that speculative movements have become so big, so nervous and so sudden that they constantly threaten to throw the economic machine right out of balance. It is as though you had in an aeroplane a lot of heady, nervous passengers rushing suddenly and simultaneously from one end of the vessel to the other—and to make it worse, always running forward when she dips and running aft when sli* -climbs. Either they have to be put under some restraint or there will be a crash. And President Koosevelt's problem —and our problem, too—is to devise the right r form of restraint. R.C.S.