BIG SURPLUSES IN AMERICA

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26120, 24 May 1950, Page 6

BIG SURPLUSES IN AMERICA

“SEEDS OF A NEW DEPRESSION ”

IMPRESSIONS OF RHODES SCHOLAR Persons holding important positions in American agriculture were hoping and praying for droughts or floods to limit primary production, and so avoid the need for official restriction of production. said Mr H. E. Garrett, senior lecturer in farm management and valuation at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, who has returned to New Zealand after an absence of two years and a half. In almost every avenue of agriculture. except beef, there had been tremendous over-production, said Mr Garrett. Stores everywhere and barns on farms were crammed full of produce. In some other industrial fields surpluses were also building up, he said. In these surpluses were the seeds of a new depression, unless the economy of the country was handled very carefully. After visiting Europe and the United States. Mr Garrett saw as the only solution to this growing problem the transfer of 40.000.000 surplus population from Europe to America. Mr Garrett left New Zealand at the end of 1947 to enter the economics I school at Oxford University under a Rhodes Scholarship he was granted in 1939. At that time his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of war. Mr Garrett was the first Rhodes scholar from Canterbury Agricultural College. During his term at Oxford he travelled in Great Britain, and as the guest of the Department of Agriculture in. Holland, Sweden, and Denmark. He also visited Belgium. France. ’Germany. Switzerland, and Italy, and on behalf of Canterbury Agricultural College, he attended an international conference of agricultural economists at Stresa. in northern Italy. On his return to New Zealand he spent 50 days in the United States under a travelling grant from the Carnegie Corporation. “Power to Reckon With” “It may be a while, but I have a feeling that the Germans will again ! be a power to reckon with.” said Mr ; Garrett, reviewing his visit to that i country. One could not help being | impressed with their thoroughness | and efficiency, he said. The countryI side of Germany was untouched, pros- ! perous and productive, said Mr GarI rett, but Hamburg had “an indescribable heap of rubble’’ and towns and | cities like Bremen and Kiel were I little Letter. Yet though they had no machine tools and had only a few horses and waggons, the people were i r..c:hodically sorting out the bricks. In the big. job of “cleaning up the mes<” they wore working hard, starting at 530 in the mornings, and maki ing progress. Of several new blocks ; of flats built in Hamburg. Mr Garrett ' said. “We should be proud to have I them in Christchurch." On arriving I in Germany Mr and Mrs Garrett were ; surprised, after their English experi- • once, to find food shops full of produce. but thev were told that the poorer people did not have the money | to buy these wares. | In Denmark Mr Garrett said there : was a lesson for Now Zealand. The 1 people, ho said, were strictly honest.

clean, industrious and pleasant, and ) in many respects their agriculture was ? superior to that of New Zealand, but 2 with a population of 4.000.000 without d resources for manufacturing indus- - tries, their living standards were low s by comparison with New Zealand’s, f In this light it might be worth while r looking carefully at any large-scale 2 immigration to this country, which , bore a striking likeness to Denmark 1 in many respects. _i Mr Garrett found Sweden a land 2 ; with high living standards, but very U worried about the Russian menace. 'I “She has successfully avoided two I wars, but is dead scared she will be I : in the middle of the next.” he added. • For a holiday, Italy was one of the .. most attractive countries, said Mr Gar- . i rett. but it had too big a population—- , i about 10.000.000 too many. It had been * : one of the centres of the “cold war.” _ and Marshall Aid had only just been able to turn the scales against Communism

Eyes on Asia Speaking of the conference at Stresa. Mr Garrett said that if he had any message for the people of Christchurch it would be that they should stop worrying about Europe and should turn their minds to a close study of South-east Asia. In World War II only the American fleet had stopped the Japanese threat from this direction. “We have just got to make an alliance with the United States and help these people out by’ force, ir shoulder our responsibilities and ensure that they will be satisfied to stay in their own backyards.” said Mr Garrett. People in America were expecting war within two years, said Mr Garrett. “Many of them spend a lot of their waking hours worrying about when the war is going to start. "Tn spite of the adversities they have been through I am satisfied they are still the sanest people on earth,” said Mr Garrett, of the people of the British Isles.