Goods and the War

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20414, 26 November 1940, Page 10

Goods and the War

Sir,—Leading British importers and the press have been stressing that it was essential we should import more from Britain to help her to win the war.. Sir Harry Batterbee has informed us that the best way we can help is to import still less. We have been told there are not enough goods to go around, more money than goods, the people have too much money, etc. If this is the case, why the apparent desperate effort to sell as evidenced by the extensive advertising that seems to be in vogue throughout New Zealand? Is our money system wrong, or what is it? Your editorial of Saturday says that there should be no luxuries for the duration of the war and, indeed, nothing that is not ' essential; New Zealanders must learn to go without the things that they have been accustomed to: it can be done without hardship. No doubt a considerable war effort is needed, but would your remedies work out without considerable hardship, and where would it end? If shopkeepers conlined their purchases to essential requirements only and did not replenish existing stocks, and if the “sheltered secondary industries’’ were closed, what a wholesale dislocation it would cause, even were it done gradually as stocks became depleted! All their staffs could not be absorbed in farm or munition works. Scrubcutting seems to be the. only avenue for unemployment to-day. As presumably the principle would apply to all trades, would it not help sterling funds and, therefore, the war effort, if newspapers were cut clown to a minimum as they arc in Britain? I admit I am puzzled, for although I am a hard-working man I never have enough money to buy more than the barest necessities. What is the cause? PUZZLED. [Much depends, of course, on the interpretation of hardship. Those who had never been accustomed to anytiling but the barest necessities would hardly suffer further hardship if other people’s luxuries and non-essentials were cut out; indeed, their position might be improved. So far as others are concerned, they’, like the people of other subjected countries, would suffer infinitely worse hardship and wholesale dislocation if they came under German domination. Supplies of newsprint in New Zealand are already more severely rationed than in any part of the British Empire other than Britain. Since the correspondent apparently subscribes to the newspaper, he evidently regards it as coming within the category of barest necessities. —Ed., Herald.]