NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 10

NOTES OF THE DAY

Ottawa reports of progress at the Imperial Economic Conference tend to run ahead of the event. Thus to-day it is cabled that * the fruit problem is practically solved.” Previously there have been the same optimistic reports as to agreements regarding butter and meat. It should be kept in mind that these are agreements by the exporting countries. Apparently their representatives have found no difficulty in agreeing what they shall ask of Great Britain. In every case they seek quotas in addition to tariff preferences. Perhaps such unanimity among the sellers is something gained although it may make Britain s position as buyer not an enviable one. There can be no doubt the Dominions are asking a great deal, possibly more than they hope to receive. They may merely be occupying bargaining ground. But the problems will not be “practically solved,” or even approach solution, until Britain has stated what she will do. The buyer in these days has the last word and so far Britain’s delegates have preserved a discreet silence on .the Dominions’ proposals. * « » > * Three years ago most of us erred from excess of optimism. Now* we are aggravating the reaction by painting conditions blacker than they are. An example occurs in the motor registration figures published this morning. The dfecrcase of cars in use is far less than had been imagined. Similarly the small decline in telephone revenue disclosed this week does not fit with the stories of wholesale' disconnections. The way in which the unemployment returns are usually regarded might be taken as another instance. We talk of 55,000 unemployed when actually the number unplaced last week was 15,000. The remainder were more or less occupied on relief works or in other directions. It is a great mistake to make things out to be worse than they are. That is fatal to a revival of general confidence, the essential ingredient of recovery. Just as baa, of course, is to be lulled into a mood of false security. To-day’s great need is perspective, “to see things steadily and see them whole.”

In discussing the remedy for the shocking loss of life on the road, Mr. Justice Reed has come to much the same opinion as the British Ministry of Transport. Both are agreed that the remedy lies in an aroused public opinion which, in the case of prosecutions, would be expressed through juries. Addressing the Safety First Congress in London, Sir Henry Piggott, Deputy-Secretary to the Transport Ministry, said that “every day, on an average, 18 people were killed and some 550 injured, many of them maimed for life, on the roads of Great Britain. If some disease or plague were to claim victims on that scale the whole medical faculty would be mobilised to meet. the situation and provide a remedy. His own conviction was that little more could be done to reduce the number of accidents by further penal legislation or additional regulations. What was needed was that public opinion and the public conscience should be so roused as to insist that the reckless driver who had endangered the lives of others should receive adequate punishment.” There can be little doubt that Sir Henry’s tallying as it does with that of Mr. Justice Reed, goes to the heart of the matter.

Reports from Ottawa as to Mr. Coates’s proposals that New Zealand might participate in the benefit from the British conversion operation appear to over-step the mark. They speak of Mr. Coates entering negotiations to reduce the interest on the whole of the debt owed to the British Government (commonly called the Funded Debt) from sto 3| per cent. Incidentally the interest being paid is slightly less than 5 per cent. The Prime Minister explains, however, that New Zealand's proposal is that she should share in the interest reduction on that portion of the Funded Debt which is actually part of the British War Loan of £2OOO millions now in process of conversion from 5 to 3| per cents. The relevant portion amounts to about £ll millions of the remaining principal (£24 millions) of the Funded Debt and the annual saving to New Zealand would amount to about £153,000. That would be a substantial bonus to draw from the patriotic British investor. In the event of an all-round cancellation of War debts following upon the Lausanne agreement, and the inclusion of the Funded Debt- in the scope of such cancellation, the Dominion’s annual saving over the unexpired period of the loan (36 years) would be £1,650,000, less reparations of about £350,000.