ENGLAND’S TRADE

Hokitika Guardian, 17 July 1931, Page 5

ENGLAND’S TRADE

FLOOD OF CONTINENTAL GOODS. PROTECTION NEEDED. WELLINGTON, July 16. “The growing opinion at Heme when 1 was there,” said Mr Behrend Van ytaveren, of Van Staveren Bros., who returned to Wellington from a visit to England and America yesterday “was that there could be no improvement in the general condition of things without a change of Government and a proper division of parties! There were too many instances of minorities swinging the balance and the tail wagging the dog.

J “The root trouble at Home, now i being recognised has been caused by unionism, which measures labour by time instead of by results. -It only needed a period of economic stress to prove the fallacy of employing men by time alone for the result of .such a system was that the men who were inclined to go slow got just as much, as those who were doing a good day’s work. The general adoption of the union time-measurement of labour has meant for England a diminution in output and perhaps in quality, at a time when the Continental peop’es were straining every nerve to flood free-trade England with her goods. In Europe the working peoples are geti.ng less wages and working longer hours than in the case in English industries. How is it then possible for the English manufacturer to break even ?

“I have been to England several times, but have never seen things cheaper than they were this time. The price of luncheons and dinners anywhere almost in London i's about half what it was three years ago, and nearly every class of goods is affected. Russia is being allowed to dump l her products on to the London market duty free and other Continental nations which find themselves with surpluses make for London. I saw good shoes being sold there from Czeoho-Slovakia for. 12s 6d which three years ago one would have paid from 30s to 35s for cheerfully. “You know all about Russian butter, and bow it is hurting our trade. That sort of thing will go on so long as England has a Labour Government. It is only by protection that England can build up her industries -once more. “Then there is the tragedy of England’s finance. England and the Dominions are struggling to pay their debts in full in the traditional British way, while France is paying her war debts in francs which cost us lOd and are now only worth 2d, while America has liberated Italy from a substantial part of her debt. Under free-trade conditions it seems almost impossible for .England to continues her--ob-ligations, pay the dole that is choking the life .out of the nation, and maintain tin; desired standard of living. As far as I can sco, the only salvation for the world financially is a mutual cancellation of all war debts, allowing every nution to start off again with a clean slate. GUT-THROAT PRICES IN AMERICA “America with all her wealth dees not seem to be much better off than Jirigland,” continued Mr Van Staveren. “Everywhere in that country there were sales announced and cut-throat prices were the order of the day. The prices for all manufactured goods were incredibly low. A petrol war was raging when I was there. Petrol was down to as low as 9 cents (4Jd) a gallon, and two packets of cigarettes (con taining forty) could he purchased for a quarter (Is). It seemed to me that people in trade were turning overstocks irrespective of profits. “I was in Chicago when the great Forman Bank closed its doors. It was a sensation, and within a fortnight or so twenty-three other banks had collapsed like packs of cards. , You must understand that the banking, system of the States is very different to ours. They are mostly private banks with a State charter; that is to say, they have no branches outside their own State though they may have agents. These banks go in largely for financing building schemes, and all were more or less involved with advances on houses, buildings, and farms, so t'-" when the economic stress became felt the people could not pay their interest, the banks had to close down. Their sources of revenue had dried up. ’ ’