GETTING SACK TO NORMAL

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 29, 3 August 1921, Page 4

GETTING SACK TO NORMAL

Mr. M. A. Carr, chairman, in addressing members of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce to-day, ably reviewed the trading position of the Dominion, both export and import. He showed how, for the first time for very many years, the imports of New Zealand had exceeded the exports in value to as much as £10,000,000. Hitherto the position has been entirely reversed, and the run of prosperity has been continuous and expansive. Now almost all that New Zealand has to sell has heavily fallen in value; and almost everything it requires from overseas, bought. at peak prices, is held in excessive quantities, a,nd is arriving on a falling market. Mr. Carr does not blame the banks for putting on what is sometimes called "the screw " ; in fact, .he thinks this action was "probably a blessing in disguise." But the circumstances to which he refers will account for present financial stringency. In that e!xperienee New Zealand is not alone, as Mr. Carr clearly perceives. The remedies that commend themselves to him, and which he recommends to others, are more production, lower eogts of production, and reduction of profits. A return to pre-war prices he does nob think probable, nor wholly desirable in present <Srcumstances; but there must be more give-and-take all round, nationally and internationally, if readjustment of trade and exchange is to be successful. Here, as is to be inferred from Mr. Carr's remarks, the lubricant of genuine N co-operation between nation arid nation, Governments and their peoples, traders and customers, producers and consumer^ employers and employed, must be applied if confidence is to be restored, and the general complications left by the war are to be cleared awtiy. True, Mr. Carr is but repeating what has of late been said over md over again, if in other words; but it is necessary sometimes to din the obvious into the public ear, because, it seems, there is no other way of arousing general attention to the need for action upon sound, sane lines.