INSULATING NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 165, 15 July 1938, Page 8

INSULATING NEW ZEALAND.

CAN IT BE DONE? (To the Editor.) "W.E.H." k hardly correct in his letter on Tuesday in assuming that I am "uronderiag" how the Prime Minister "intends" to insiuat* New Zealand from the ill-effects of a possible overseas depression, for I don't believe that he or anyone else could do so. In my letter of July 4 I claimed that the country k entitled to know how he "proposes" to ,j 0 this. That is the answer we want. We should know whether he really has any practical scheme in mind, or whether he is merely tryin* to discredit all his predecessors of the last 50 yeare, this being election year. throws no light on the subject, for we cannot agree to his premise that "primary and secondary prices more or less rise and fall in sympathy," for this is distinctly contrary to fact. Wool fell from £21 a bale in the boom season of 1029 to less than £8 in the worst years of the rilunip. 1931 to 1933, rising to over £1} in 1936, and £22 in 1937. Butterfat fell front 1/6 in 1929 to an average of 9Jd to 10d in the slump years, and is now up to about 1/21 Beef fell from 43/ in 1929 to 19/ in the elnnui and since 1934 has been gradually rising to 39/, These are the kind of fluctuations that have always determined depression or prosperity in New Zealand since the slump of the 'eighties, apparently regardless of all other influences, even though they are not the sole measure of our prosperity, and as the fanner , * costs .have never altered in proportion, for either goods or services, it is idle to imply that the community is only concerned in the exchange value obtainable in British manufactures. "W.E.H." should tell us how TSfaj Zealand can ever be insulated from these overseas influences, bearing in mind our actual producing and trading conditions, and not merely theoretical platitudes. CROESUS. I I