The Guardian FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1933. WORLD ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LIV, Issue 21, 17 March 1933, Page 4

The Guardian

FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1933. WORLD ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Printed at Leeston, Canterbury, New Zealand, on Tuesday and Friday afternoons.

Within the next few weeks the World Economic Conference will be commenced, upon which issues of vast importance depend. International tariffs, trade restrictions and shipping subsidies—all those impediments to a free exchange of goods between the nations, now so sadly interrupted, will be discussed. The field for discussion is so wide that sooner or later the great question cf war debts must come within the orbit of the conference. It is generally admitted that the trade, restrictions which have been imposed by all nations, our own Dominion not excepted, have been a contributing cause to the depression from which the world is suffering. Great breadth of view and a clear vision of the future and of the consequences of their decisions will be essential to the statesmen delegates in dealing with the problems which will come before the conference. While there are those observers who fear that national interests and a narrow outlook will dominate the proceedings and stulify any decisions reached, there are others again who are looking forward to the Conference to produce as great and as farreaching consequences in the industrial world as were produced by the political conferences at Locarno and Lausanne. New Zealand, a primary producing country, will be vitally interested in the conference. She is suffering from the abnormal fall in the world prices of her products brought about by the stagnation of international trade, and any action taken which will bring about a return to free, unrestricted trading and a rise in prices will be of immense value to her. Discussing the prospects of this coming about, the Westminster Bank Review, in its January issue said: "The future course of prices may be decided, positively or negatively, at the World Economic Conference. The tendency in some quarters to regard the conference, in advance, as condemned to sterility appears to be both over-hasty and overpessimistic. An agreement which marked the beginning of the process of removal of some of the worst barriers to international trade, followed by a settlement of the war debts question, would do far more to raise the world price level than any number of formal resolutions regarding the desirability of higher prices, piously subscribed to by every nation to the world. The immediate essential for rising prices is an expansion of the world market, and this is an object which it should be well within the capacity of a World Economic Conference to secure. When once it has started, the question of a future currency policy may be tackled under more favourable auspices."