“Cooties Ride On Bikes” THOUGHTS ON TRADING WITH POORER NATIONS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28800, 22 January 1959, Page 10

“Cooties Ride On Bikes” THOUGHTS ON TRADING WITH POORER NATIONS

tB V

GKORCB SCHWARTZ

tn the “Sunday Time»"l

fßoprintad by ArranymnentJ

How, asked the irate American steelman, cai) we compete with these British workers who go to work on bicycles? Well, I go to work on a trolley-bus, and this is to notify all American newspaper proprietors that, on this reckoning, I am in a position to undercut Walter Lippmann, James' Reston, the Alsop brothers, Arthur Krock, and any other of the. topnotch columnists on their side. Jobbing journalism of all kinds undertaken. World problems solved in 800 words. Chancelleries shaken and Cabinets overthrown at lowest rates. Telegraphic address: Omnisci, London. This soft dollar market ought to be a cinch for me, and it has obvious possibilities for you other coolies in these islands who, barely existing on tea and slabcake in between meals, wobble about on boneshakers and, to my observation, apparently cannot even afford to keep the rear lamp clean. A Spoke In Oar Wheel. I have ascertained—never mind how—that none of our 8.0.A.C. pilots has a private swimmingpool, and if that rag-tag, bobtail crew doesn’t drive the Americana out of the skies over the Atlantic, preliminary to wiping their eye over the Pacific routes, there’s something wrong with the argument.

The trouble is that while we are favourably placed for taking the bread out of the American mouths, other peoples ’in still more abject circumstances are in a position to cut the economic ground from under our feet, or, perhaps I. should say. to put a spoke in our bicycle wheels. Five standing in a bus during the rush hour is a pretty low standard of living, and the unions here are rightly trying to raise, it by imposing a “No standing. You ’eard me” rule. But in Italy 30 standing at any time of the day is the only chance pickpockets have of making a living. Further east the bulk of the passengers travel on the outside of the vehicle, cling, ing like flies on a treacle paper, and I hear talk of countries where the workers get to the job only by giving each other piggybacks. Where’s it all going to end? Unfair to the Rich The batie of the rich is the existence of poorer people with a lower standard of living who take advantage of their poverty to better themselves. This has been going on for some time now. with the result that the only well-to-do countries ip the world- today are those that are being ruined by cheap labour from out-

side. The British have suffered in that way for a century or more. Now it is the turn of the Americans. When we were topdogs the under-dogs were always snatching the bones off our plates. Now we’ve joined the herd snapping at the American heels. If the Brazilian Government suddenly decreed that Brazilian workers should be paid on the Studebaker standard and bunged the result on to the price of coffee, the howl from the United States citizenry would echo round the world. If the prices of Malayan tin and rubber go up, and the local inhabitants improve their lot by importing 10-year-old Hollywood films, the United States Congress resounds with complaints of gouging, and the State Department has to make an agonising reappraisal of its Far East policy. Economics, comes into this, but don’t ask me where. The dismal nature and dejected mien of most economists derive from the fact that they believe peoples with differing standards of living can profltablyvtrade with one another, and they can t persuade anyone else to believe It It is one of the most elementary propositions in economics, and the practitioners of the acience just can’t get it across. Hence the universal agreement that the most urgent problem in the world today is the improvement of the lot of the poorer peoples, and the universal belief that it is dangerous to do busmess with them. Even the Japanese, who used to be the prime villains in this low standard-of -living turpitude,, are now complaining of cut-throat competition from Communist

China. Big Laugh Coming? What I can’t understand is why this process doesn’t work internally as well as externally. hasn’t a run-of-the-milll scribbler like mysef driven Messrs T. b. Eliot, Graham Greene, J. B. Priestley et alios out literary market? °“ c . °£ these gentlemen has, or used to have, a prize herd of dairy eattle. Dash it I haven’t even a budgerigar in the house. You can get me for fivepence.a week, s “. r yf u "“s s by acres of other a^ rBCI IX*.5 e !?' ing. Why do you buy their expensive products? The Christmas season is as favourable as any o<h« for rw fleeting on the notion whetitar you can make people - by refusing to buy from them. It would be a jity - hold up gold, frankincense and myrrh at the because of the country of origin. In any case the scene changing, and if we are to believe MJ $ Khrushchev, his part of the world will before lon g' ou^ l P 4 th ?. in Productivity stondard, of unfair .

DROUGHT ON Peninsula No More Fat Cattle Banks Peninsula farmers, usually important suppliers of fat cattle to spring sales at Addington, may find it most difficult to send their usual quota of stock forward to the market next spring as a result of the present severe drought. Many farmers, especially in the worst-affected eastern part of the Peninsula from Sumner to Little Akaloa, have been forced to dispose of all their cattle, either tor sale as fats, or as stores to areas in the Canterbury foothills, where farmers still have feed to cany them. No more fat cattle are likely to come forward to Addington from the Peninsula from now on this season as there is simply not the feed left. The eastern Peninsula bays have had no worthwhile rain since last August, and the rainfall last year was little more than 17 inches, compared with the average yearly fall of 35. inches. The stock, feed position was described as "desperate* just after Christmas, and it has worsened if anything since then. Less than four inches of rain has fallen since September. In this area the hills and valleys are burnt bare and brown, and even shady faces are devoid of any feed Herds Dispersed A Menzies Bay farmer who normally has 200 head of cattle running on his property at this time of "the year has only four beasts left at the moment. Dozens of other farmers have similarly been forced to get rid of their herds, so that few, if any, cattle are likely to be fattened for. the spring markets from the eastern Peninsula. In other parts of Banks Peninsula there has also been a steady selling oft of cattle. Many young beasts have been got away as fats, whereas they would normally be kept another year or two before being sold, while many store beasts which would be carried through the winter and sent away prime after the early spring rains have also had to be disposed of. Dairy herds have similarly been reduced on many Peninsula farms through lack of feed, while in the early summer many farmers had to send their lambs away for sale as stores, as they were too light for killing fat. Many properties on the lighter Peninsula land suffered losses of sheep during the spring and early summer dry spell.