CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

CROAKERS CRUSHED

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The letter signed "A.M.H.," published in your journal on Friday, and which purports to be a reply to the letter signed by me and published on August. 30, is based on bunkum , and polished with piffle.' I said in my letter that people in the Dominion who are predicting, a slump were merely echoing the opinions of 22 economists in the United Kingdom. "A.M.H." brushes aside the opinions of economists, so I venture to give him other opinions. If your correspondent would look through the files of "The Post" he would find that it was reported from London on June 21 (Mr. Savage was in London at the time) that an influential group of the House of Commons, representing important city interests, was pressing the Prime Minister to appoint a Royal Commission to draw up plans to. prevent or af. least mitigate the .next slump. So far, it .was stated, the Government had not'conceded that governmental action could influence a trade depression, but opinion was growing that it was necessary to design machinery to deal with the situation that ,was likely to arise on the completion of the Government's re-armament programme. I do not know whether "A.M.H." would rate these London'business men as intelligent, or of possessing intelligence equal to that of the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage. For my part, I accept their decisions without question, for London business men, in my opinion, are thoroughly conversant with every mood in international trade. In my letter I stated that boom and slump are beyond the control of Governments, and this is acknowledged by the British Government, but.the "intelligent" Labour Government knows better than that.' They can throw away £650,000 on the dairy industry, and claim it to be intelligent. Boom and slump, I am bound to repeat, are beyond our influence or control. They come to us from overseas (mainly the United Kingdom) through the prices paid for the primary products we export. We are enjoying prosperity today, and why? If "A.M.H." will look up the Monthly. Abstract for July he would find that our "exports for the production year ended June 30 last were valued at £64,621,000 in round figures. In the production year «nded June 30, 1933, when we were in the very depth of the depression,' our exports were valued at £37,470,000 in round figures. These trade figures disclose the gap between prosperity, and economic depression. The Coalition Government was not responsible for the low prices realised in 1932-33, any more than the Labour Government can claim that it is responsible for the high prices of the past season. We have no control whatever on economic trends cf boom and slump. When • a boom is being enjoyed our standard of living is high, and when there is a slump it is low. To emphasise this, let me produce in evidence the statement made by a prominent member of the Labour Government, the Hon. Walter Nash, so recently as August 25. . In his address at the luncheon tendered to him and the Prime Minister he is reported tohaye said that he was satisfied that, : ....the standard of living that could be experienced by the people of New Zealand would be higher or lower in proportion to the trade that New Zealand carried on with the .United Kingdom; in,other words, our standard of living—prosperity or depression—depended upon, the economic conditions'.prevailing in the Old Country.—l am, etc., __ _ _ • . H.J.IC