Way to Raise Prices

Horowhenua Chronicle, 15 July 1933, Page 7

Way to Raise Prices

DIVERGENT VIEWS. LONDON, July 13. It is learned that the Dominions believe that price-raising by expansion •of credits must replace restriction of imports to enable them to meet their debt obligations. Mr Neville Chamberlain has already indicated that Britain favours priceraising, but he has revealed no policy likely to achieve it. It is believed that Mr Montagu Norman, of the Bank of England, with his rigid deflationist policy, is the real ob- - stacle, and Mr Chamberlain, influenced by the traditional Treasury orthodoxy, is in his school. Frequent Parliamentary questions on ‘the submergence of British agriculture .to Dominion interests show that the 'House of Commons is becoming in-

creasingly “agricultural.” Major Elliot, Minister of Agriculture, is known to have thrown out a feeler as to how far the producing Dominions are prepared to go to limit exports to Britain, thereby preventing price fluctuations, while giving the British agriculturist a better chance in his own market. The Dominions at Ottawa wore not favourable to restrictions, but accepted a year’s curtailment in meat and two years in butter as a compromise. Their position still is that in the spirit of Ottawa there should ,be a curtailment of foreign imports with the least possible interference with the Dominions’ desire and readiness to supply any deficiency above home production. For the moment the matter is left in the air, but there is little indication that much progress has been made toward composing the divergent outlooks.