SOMETHING WRONG SOMEWHERE.

Evening Star, Issue 12068, 14 December 1903, Page 2

SOMETHING WRONG SOMEWHERE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —“FdM.in Friday night’s ‘Star,’ iraws attention to the excess of British imports over exports during the past ten years, amounting to £52,000,000. No doubt that is the important matter which gives concern to British statesmen, and which they seek to cure by legislation in the direction of Protection. It must be evident to everyone that this excess cannot he accounted for out of increased profits or interest from foreign investments, or from larger profits from freights. Great Britain has been lending less, not more, to outside countries during the past ten years. .-Other countries, too, have susidised shipping that must have tended to rob Great Britain of profits. Whence, then, the increase of imports? There imports represent, I believe, the repayment of British loans. The fall in the rate of interest, which has been greater and more accentuated in foreign countries than in Great Britain, has led to the return of millions of pounds worth of loans to Great Britain. Instead of loans going out to foreign countries from Great Britain, they are being returned to her, and, cf course, they appear as imports. All the colonies are finding within their own borders municipal, State, and other gilt-edged loans, for which we formerly went to Great Britain. Not that this shows the colonies are wealthier than they were, only that all investments are sought iu gilt-edged securities, as ala-ays happens 'in times of mistrust, and money ceases to flow in the usual channels of trade, industry, and enterprise. lower loans by Great Britain mean lessened exports from Great Britain. Now, if legislation is the proper remedy, it ;s legislation that must have originated the disease. And that legislation, many -titesmen affirm, is the Law passed in 1893 closing the Indian mints to silver, which caused a fall in its price from ss'2d per ounce to the present unheard of price of 2s and thereabouts. Many of the witnesses examined before the Indian Silver Commission predicted disastrous results to England’s trade and commerce from the fall m silver. . If. then, this legislation is the cause of the increased imports of England, does not ilic true remedy seem to be a repeal of,the laws that occasioned the evil? In short, is not the true remedy to reopen the Indian mints, and to cause a rise in the value of, silver? AWfsadsrin,- moaej;-v^ilead-tft-sFretrade-

in goods. But England, by protecting gold and legislating in its favor and against silver, Has led to Protection in goods, first ifi foreign countries, and now within her own Empire. The best proof that fallen silver is the cause of Protection is afforded by the fact that eminent economists predicted Protection as the result before the fall took place.—l am, etc., Donald Reid, Jun. December 11.