A NOTE OF WARNING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19032, 1 June 1925, Page 11

A NOTE OF WARNING.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. PURCHASE OF LUXURIES. MR. JUSTICE FRAZER'S VIEW, [BY TELEGItArH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION'.] CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday. During a discussion in the Arbitration Court to-day Mr. C. Renn, representing the employees, touched upon the position of the boot trade. He said that if the duty on imported boots were removed the money available would be sufficient to give pensions to every employee in the industry. >' Mr. Justice Frazor said lie had heard that statement before, but he had never seen it working out. " We should go carefully at present as we are getting perilously near what looks like the next slump," he continued. "A further drop iri wool probably will mean that the margin between exports and imports will not be safe as it will not bo sufiicient to pay interest on our outside indebtedness. That means ,we will have to go slow on imports." Mr. Renn said in many cases imports were luxuries. Mr. Justice Frazor said probably some of them were. Many people were making a serious mistake for which' they would suffer later on. Tjie trouble was that while peoplo who bought things they could not afford would suffer primarily the working people would suiter indirectly through less money being available and consequently a slackening in employment. The position showed how everybody was linked with everybody else. If one section of the community was hit through its own folly the effect rebounded to others. Mr. Renn said that another serious danger was that prices for wool had soared to fabulous heights with the result that land on Banks Peninsula, for instance, which once sold at £2 an acre had risen in price to £4O or £45 an acre. Mr. Justico Frazer said it was unfortunate that people would speculate.