THE WAY OUT

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXI, Issue 10905, 3 September 1932, Page 4

THE WAY OUT

SCIENTIST LOOKS AT DEPRESSION,

“What the world needs to-day,” said Mr L. T. Watson, addressing the economic section of the Science Congress at Sydney, “is a scheme whereby the producer is encouraged by a payable price to produce more and more: while the consumer can obtain his needs at the price he can pay. “An approximation of standards, not by pulling down a high standard to that of countries on a lower one, but by using finance to maintain the one without penalising the other, is needed. “This can be done. To do it quickly is the only way of averting a world crash. It is not worth while to apply our whole energy towards evolving a scheme which will avert such a catastrophe?” If the foreign price level was high, all home market prices tended to rise; if foreign prices were low, a downward trend of internal price levels set in. In itself eac hof these effects was pernicious, because it initiated a false level, based on conditions in a foreign land. • Science has created more social and political problems than mankind has been able to solve, said Professor H. T. Laby (in a paper read by Professor Wadham) as a lead to a general discussion on "Science and the Depression.” Out of the war had developed an economic war which, financially, had been more disastrous than the World War. If it continued, it would nullify all recent scientific progress and reduce nations to primitive communities. Different parts of the Empire were engaged in a tariff war which had no rational economic objective, but was a substitute for the use of force. In spite of crushing taxation, governments were bankrupt or on the verge, and in 19 countries there had been revolutions or acute social disorders.