POLICY IN IRELAND

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 138, 14 June 1933, Page 10

POLICY IN IRELAND

SEUF-SUPFICIENCY ECONOMIST'S CONCERN

(From 'The Post's" Representative.) • , LONDON, April 28. Mr. J. Maynard Keynes, the'wellknown economist, delivered a lecture- at the University College, ■; Dublin, on "National Economic. Self-Sufficiency." Among' tho large audience was Mr. dc Valera. ' . .-. ■■ ~ If he'were an Irishman, he said, lie would find much to attract him in tho Government's striving towards a greater self:sufficieney, but .as, a practical man, who, considered poverty and insecurity, of life to bo great evils, he would wish first to satisfy himself on two He would ask if Ireland was sufficiently large for, more than':,a very-modest measure of 'self-sufficiency to be feasible without a disastrous reduction in a standard of. life which already was none *'y too high. He believed that the would be that it would be an act of high wisdom on the part of the Irish to enter into an, economic arrangement with England, which, within, certain appropriate limits, would, retain, for Ireland her traditional British market, against mutual advantages'for British producers. '-He would . see, r nothing derogatory in such a policy to political or cultural autonomy, but would regard it as an act of common sense.. Todayit was not too late to accomplish such a policy, but every delay would' make it more difficult inasmuch, as tho exclusion of Ireland's'agricultural .produce, suited the present trend1 of agricultural policy in Great Britain. If, on the other hand, he were to inject this plan deliberately, for a complexity of reasons, and decide to work out the destiny of the Free State on other lines, he would sit down to the problem with the best brains that he could command to work out a slow series of experiments. No man had a right to gamble with the of a people by going blindly into technical changes imperfectly understood. Eussia stood as an, awful example-of what ( ruin and desolation, ill-judged and obstinate experiments could work, in an agricultural country, so that.people were starving today, in a country that once was ono of the greatest food producing areas in tho world. What a terrible wound, he concluded, would have been inflicted on the fair face of Ireland if within two or three years her rich pastures were to be ploughed up and the result ■ were to bo a fiasco. Could a man forgive himself for such a thing if ho had acted before ascertained knowledge and careful experience had shown beyond reasonable doubt that the project would be a practical success without undue cost? , ■ Mr., Keynes's lecture has given rise to much comment in Dublin. It marks the first occasion off which Mr. de Valera's economic policy, has been subjected to close criticism by an acknowledged expert., . .

Mr. A. W. Martin, the -well-known rupture specialist, from Dunecliu, is now on his twenty-eighth annual visit to Wellington. HoXwill bo at the New Commercial Hotel, Lambtoh Quay, Wellington, from June 19 to 26. Consultations free. Hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.—Advt.