NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 248, 15 July 1932, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

■/ German buyers are operating freely at the London wool sales, according to one report. Another message records the keenest Home and foreign trade competition, prices again hardening. A number of factors could be named as contributing to this welcome result but the latest and possibly the most influential is the settlement at Lausanne. Reparation payments had tied in knots the credit and exchange systems of Germany and Central and Eastern European countries. Thenabolition will ease and is already easing the whole financial situation. Apparently Germany has been enabled to buy wool. If the process goes on she may absorb large quantities of Danish and Baltic butter, thus taking some of the depressing weight off the British market. Our apples and honey may again enter Hamburg and be so.d on the Rhine in larger quantities. The beneficial reactions might be traced indefinitely. Indeed it may happen that while our eyes are fixed on Ottawa, the first relief may issue from Lausanne. ♦ . * * *

Mr. H. H. Sterling, chairman of the Railways Board, has reopened a thorny question in speaking of the waste due to working so many harbours in New Zealand. It is part of the larger subject of transport co-ordination. This has generally been studied in recent years from the limited angle of road and rail. In that department alone there has, as we-know to our cost, been much duplication and extravagance. Latterly the Railways Board has turned a good deal of attention to the waste going on in providing water transport in competition with both, road and rail. Perhaps some day the triangle wi.l be squared by the serious entry of air transport. New Zealand already knows how difficult it is to reconcile the interests of road and rail and apportion their spheres. The rivalry of rail and water will be just as hard to settle. In fact parochialism is liable to be aroused in a more acute fqrm in defence of district sea outlets. Who is to decide, and on what grounds is the decision to be made, whether a particular district is entitled to keep a harbour open ? ♦*. ♦ ♦

A whole library could be filled with printed matter relating to the great project for making a seaway of the St. Lawrence River from Quebec to the Great Lakes of North America. Many obstacles have stood in the way of the realisation of the work. Apart from private interests, those of Canada on the one bank and the United States on the other had to be reconciled. Each country, moreover, had to settle with Provincial or State jealousies and claims. Nevertheless some progress has been made in a smaller way. From the Atlantic to Quebec no improvement was required to admit the largest ships. From Quebec to Montreal the channel has already been deepened to 30 feet. Thence to Lake Ontario there is 14 feet of water. The proposal is to deepen the Quebec-Lake Ontario stretch to 33 feet, incidentally developing 2,000,000 h.p. of electricity. Then through lakes and canals, central North America—such centres as Duluth, Fort William, Chicago. Detroit—will have deep-water connection with the Atlantic Ocean. 'Truly the engineers are more potent agents of civilisation than the politicians.

Since a tariff war is in operation across the Irish Sea the assessment of the economic strength of the parties assumes importance. Last year the Free State exported goods worth £36 millions of which £35 millions were sold to Great Britain. The latter’s exports to the Free State were valued at £32 millions. On values, therefore, the contest seems evenly drawn. When the relative importance of the two trades are compared, however, the overwhelming advantage of Britain is apparent. The Free State does 96 per cent, of her total export trade with Britain but Britain’s exports to the Free State are only 8 per cent, of British total exports. Thus the British market is 12 times more important to the Free State than the latter’s market is to Brita'n. No wonder the Irffh farmer, who will stiff"- most ’n the first nlace. is apprehensive. Yet, from the tone of British public opinion, Mr. de Valera could still avert economic ruin for h's country by substituting negotiation for his policy of defiance and repud.ation. Latest reports do not admit of any hope that he will listen to reason. Whether he does or docs not he has already created a dangerous political situation, between the Irish Republican Army and other irreconcilables on the one hand, and the farmers on the other..