A MEASURE OF SELF-HELP

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 15, 19 January 1932, Page 6

A MEASURE OF SELF-HELP

Export control boards, in primary industries, are still on their trial. Some years ago the Dairy Produce Export Control Board tried to do big things too quickly with a vital food like butter; this policy crashed. In a quite different and much quieter way, the Fruit Export Control Board has been attempting lesser measures of control, or rather of guidance, and far less friction has resulted; at any rate, the board still holds on its usual way. Recognising that in these times Government money is- harder and harder to obtain, thebpar'di has now agreed to make a levy oh! all apple exporters of ljda case, to build up a fund which will ; carry a partof the outlay payable under the Government guarantee. The/ case by advocates ot.'f^. the; guarantee, summedjupiseems'to be: (1). That shortages incurfect;by fruit exporters, and paid for out of the Government guarantee, have not hitherto been great in total, relatively to the national value of this export industry; (2) that the Government guarantee not' merely helps a limited number of individual exporters who incur shortages, but helps the whole export to function, because temporary finance is facilitated by the guarantee; (3) that the new levy, even if it carries only part of the cost of the guarantee, is a gesture of self-help appropriate to the times. With economy in the air, gestures have a moral value, and this one should- have a -material •> =value' too; But the real test of such a guarantee only comes when it is wholly paid by the exporters themselves. They say, in effect, that a guarantee is a fine piece of collectivist effort If, then, the guarantee ultimately shifts from the shoulders of the taxpayer oii to those of the exporter, the idea will have reached its logical con-' elusion—co-operation of traders for trade-protection with an insurance fund against unmerited loss. It is surely their business more than the taxpayer's.