AMERICAN TRADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 197, 22 July 1931, Page 7

AMERICAN TRADE.

FIGHTING THE DEPEESSION. “America is going to .make a herculean effort to dispel the depression by causing things to happen, instead of standing by and hoping they will automatically happen,” says Mr David Cody, director of the Charles Haines Advertising Agency, Ltd., who returned this week from a four-months’ business visit to the United States and Canada. Having called on 170 commercial houses and visited the principal cities in both countries, Mr Cody gained numerous; opportunities for studying America’s, present-day business conditions and methods. He said the United States arid, to a lesser degree, Canada, had unquestionably been passing through a distressing and protracted period of difficulty. “Politicians, economists, and businessmen all likened' the first year of the depression to the 1921 slump, and kept assuring one another that the corner would soon be turned,” said Mr Cody in an interview. “Now, however, . with the realisation full upon them that things have failed to improve of their own accord, manufacturers and retailers alike have commenced to make determined and even frantic efforts to stimulate trade. American business still religiously clings to the idea that, if only it can once again bring about mass consumption, that one tiling will go a long way—if not the whole way—toward curing at least the domestic depression. “Just when business conditions will begin to grow substantially better in the United States and Canada is difficult to predict. A country-wide analysis of retail trade by a responsible body estimates "The decrease of business at between 15 and 20 per cent. Prices of most manufactured commodities are, generally speaking, very low in the United States, and undoubted bargains are to be had on all sides. Many retail concerns handling lowpriced goods report good business. One large department store in New York, for instance, enjoyed greatly increased sales and a substantial advance in revenue during May and June.

“Manufacturers in several fields report progress over the corresponding period of 1930 ; although that experience is exceptional. Others have aggressively planned for increased business between now and Christmas. On all sides there is a determination to force conditions to improve. Newspapers and advertisers alike are carrying out constructive propaganda. Bad times are so diametrically opposed to the American ideal of permanent prosperity, thought to have been readied in 1929, that businessmen are commencing to move heaven and earth to effect an improvement,”