A COMMITTEE OF ECONOMISTS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20470, 13 February 1932, Page 16

A COMMITTEE OF ECONOMISTS.

GOVERNMENT SEEKS ADVICE. REPORT ON DOMINION'S POSITION. (P&X33 iSSOCIATIO* TELEOBAM! WELLINGTON, February 12. Cabinet has decided to appoint & Committee to examine the economic and budgetary position of the Dominion and submit a report to the Government thereon. The personnel of the Committee is as follows:' — Dr. J. Hight, Rector of Canterbury College, Christchurch (chairman). Professor D. B. Copland, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Melbourne University. j Professor A. H. Tocker, Professor of Economics, Canterbury College, Christchurch, Professor H., Belshaw, Professor of Economics, Auckland University College. Mr A. D. Park, Secretary to the Treasury. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) subsequently announced that the Committee would deal with the problem of exchange. The first meeting of the Committee would be held in Wellington to-morrow, and members would be asked to expedite their work so that a decision might bo arrived at as quickly as possible. CANTERBURY COLLEGE GRADUATES. FORMER STUDENTS UNDER DR. HIGHT. Three of the economists appointed to the Committee are graduates of Canterbury College, while tho fourth is now Professor of Economics at tho College. Two of them, moreover—Professor D. B. Copland and Professor H. Belshaw —are former pupils of the chairman of the Committee, Dr. James Hight, who is now Rector, and Professor Copland himself was once Lecturer in Economics at the College. DR. JAMES HIGHT, Rector of Canterbury College, who has been appointed chairman of the Committee, was born at Halswell, Christchurch, and took his degree at Canterbury College. From 1901 until 1905 he was lecturer on constitutional history and political economy at the College. From 1909 until 1920 he was Professor of History and Economics, and was subsequently appointed Dean of the Faculty of Law and Commerce and Professor of History. After he had held many high university honours, Dr. Hight succeeded Dr. Charles Chilton as Rector of the College. In 1927 he spent a year at the University of Leeds on exchange with Professor A. J. Grant. Since 1904 lie has been a. Fellow of thp*- Royal Economic Society, and in 1925 he was local adviser to the editors of the Cambridge History of the British Empire. He has been a member of the College Board of Governors,, chairman of the Technical Colleg® 'Board, <,and .has. taken an active partjln the admiwstration of the Train : ing' College and other branches of university life. In .1912°, he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Cost of Living, and in 1918-19 assessor to the Board of Trade .Commission on CoalMining and Trade in New Zealand. He has written many books and articles on economic and educational subjects. PROFESS OK D. B. COPLAND, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the. University of Melbourne, was born in South Canterbury, and took his degrees at Canterbury College, where, in 1917,. he was assistant lecturer in History and Economics. Soon after his appointment as lecturer at the University of Tasmania, he became Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at that University. Professor Copland .was actively connected with the Workers' Educational Association in Australia, and in'l92l became its president. In 1924 he . was ■ appointed Professor of Economics end Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Melbourne, a position which he has since held. Professor Copland is nowwell known 'as the originator of the Copland Plan for the economic rehabilitation of Australia, which was adopted by the Premiers' Conference. He has been visiting New Zealand on holiday. PROFESSOR A. H. TOCKER, Professor of -Economics at Canterbury College, was Born in the Wairarapa, and began his education at the Greytown District High School. He entered the teaching profession and was engaged under tho Wellington Education Board' from 1910 until he left to servo in the Great War in 1917, After the war he found time to further his studies in England, and was for some time at Birmingham University, under Sir William Ashley. He returned to New Zealand at the beginning of 1920 and the following year was appointed assistant lecturer in economics at Canterbury College. On the retirement of Dr. J. B. Condliffe in 1926, he succeeded to the professorial chair of economics. In 1930 Professor Tocker represented the New Zealand Government at the International Labour Conference in Geneva..

PROFESSOR HORACE BELSKAW, Professor of Economics at Auckland University College, was born in Lancashire, England, and educated in Christchurch. After taking his degrees at Canterbury College, he was engaged for some years in teaching and then became lecturer in economics for the W.E.A. in the Westland and South Canterbury centres. From 1924 to 1926 ho studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, -where lie gained his doctorate. He has been Professor of Economics at Auckland since 1927. TRAINED ECONOMISTS. ADVISORY COUNCIL IN BRITAIN. It is no new thing for a Government to call trained economists to its assistance. An. Economic Advisory Council, including economists and industrialists, has been in existence in Great Britain since January, 1930. There it is a permanent body and reports to Cabinet. Its chairman is the Prime Minister, and the other members are the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Privy Seal, the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister for Agriculture, such other Ministers as the Prime Minister may from time to time summon, and other persona ehosen by the Prime