FINDING REAL VALUES

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 19, 22 January 1921, Page 4

FINDING REAL VALUES

Mr. F. G. Kellaway, Parliamentary Secretary to the British Department of Oversea^ Trade, sees good reasons for "restrained optimism" in the present period of British trade depression: Projduction was, he said, still below demand, and he particularly directed the attention, of British manufacturers to the markets and wealthy populations of the Dominions. This may seem strange advice, when considering the ' present circumstances of Australia and New Zealand, for in both countries the brakes are being jammed hard down on- importing. But, Mr.' Kellaway will probably be quite correct (■ in his prediction of an increased overseas demand, "in particular from the Dominions." It is not so much the-tjuan-tities of imports as their price that will account for much of the present difficulty. The time is one of readjustment —"finding the real values that will lead to stability and progress in trade," to quote Mr. Kellaway. Prices will explain ■why goods are not passiny so readily into consumption as-they are being imported. It is not a matter of over-production or over-importing so much as the recasting of ideas of-values. The phase will pass, awkward as it is; but'it will .not pass until " real values ", are found. The search for these is proceeding, on the whole', satisfactorily. . Any undue hasto in the process is not to be desired. It is much to be preferred that the/return of values to normality should be natural and gradual.