COULD BE AVOIDED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 121, 17 February 1944, Page 6

COULD BE AVOIDED

Post-War Trade Struggle LONDON, February 15.. The British Minister ot State, Mr. Richard Law, told an American aun'ience in London today thafia trade struggle after the war could be avoided. If there was poverty in Britain there could not be prosperity in the United There were still people on each side o> the Atlantic who, thought only of a struggle for markets, and if those people had their way it would be at the expense of the two peoples as a whole. Mr. Law. said he thought there could be healthy competition only if an expanding world economy were created and h the standard of life all over the work; could be raised. . . In the House of Lords, the Minister of Reconstruction, Lord Wqolton, gave some details of the Government’s views on the reconstruction period when hostilities ceased. In the first period, during, the transition from war economy to peace production, men’s hopes might be high, but something like 10,000,000 men would have to have their occupations changed. Raw materials and finished goods would be in short supply, but there would not be unemployment. This period would be followed by a boom, but we must not let rising prices swallow up our war savings. In an earlier speech Lord Addisorsaid he thought Britain would emerge from the war richer than when she entered it. The country would have in creased capacity for industrial and agricultural production, aud he did not want to see any such policy of deflation adop‘> ’ed as was adopted after the last war. In spite of the war our national income had increased very substantially. The only financial losses were the losses of our overseas investments; but no one would deny that the post-war situation if properly handled, would give a great opportunity for British export trade iu many directions.