NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1933. DOMINION’S OUTLOOK

Northern Advocate, 18 August 1933, Page 6

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1933. DOMINION’S OUTLOOK

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper.

The newly elected president, of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce is a hanker, and, as a consequence, his address from the chair at the annual meeting.of the chamber was of more than

local interest. Mr Dykes urged strongly that New Zealand should cultivate the closest business relations with Britain, which takes 88 per cent, of our total output of primary products and has freely invested capital in the Dominion to promote development of our resources. The opinion was advanced that the con-

traction, both in value and in volume, of the world’s trade since 1929 is due very largely to the restriction of importations in various countries (mainly for tire purpose of protecting home 'industries) and to the existence of trade barriers. Mr Dykes also pointed out, in this connection, that the depreciation ' of cuf ren-

oics in twenty countries in the world lias accelerated the downward movement of prices in terms of gold that originated in the slackening of the demand for goods. An increased level of the prices of commodities has keen widely held to bo one of the conditions that must precede the world's recovery from, the malaise from which it has suffered. “The unprecedented fall of commodity prices in recent years has caused a growing disequilibrium between costs and prices, lias immensely increased the burden of all debts and fixed charges, has: made business more and more unprofitable, ‘ and lias resulted in a continuous and disastrous increase of unemployment throughout the world.” In Mr Dykes's opinion, the lowering of trade barriers all over the world would probably result in an increase in the prices in the world’s markets, the primary products being those that would be the first to benefit. It is very encouraging to note flic improvement that lias taken place in the prices of New Zealand's primary products, and there is ground for hope that- it will extend to oilier commodities. If that should happen, the problem of unemployment, which Mr Dykes justly emphasised as being of a most disturbing character, will certainly be more susceptible to adjustment. Speaking of the extent to which machinery has displaced human labour, Mr Dykes sounded a new note, offering the opinion that some of the burden that is being carried by individual taxpayers for the relief of unemployment should be transferred to the machinery that has put human labour out of use/ He suggests that the effect would be that employers would have greater hesitation than they now have in introducing machinery. However, as the “Otago Daily Times” says when commenting upon Mr.Dykes’s statement, ■ when the tremendous increase of production duo to the use of machinery is considered, it is difficult to imagine that a tax on machinery, which would be a tax on capital and a tax on enterprise,, would prevent the instalment of appliances that would appreciably reduce the costs ,of production. Moreover, the imposition of a restriction upon invention and . progress, through the taxation of machinery, is not logically defensible if it is agreed that the imposition of restrictions upon the flow of trade is economically unsound.