NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19719, 19 August 1927, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BRITISH AGRICULTURE. The world-wide problem of disparity between agricultural prices and general commodity prices was mentioned as the primary cause British farming industry's difficulties by Mr. \V. Guinness, Minister of Agriculture, in an address in London last month. He said such dislocations of prices and troubles had been experienced before, and no doubt in the long run economic forces would bring about a righting of the position. The suggestion was often made to him of direct assistance. Unfortunately subsidies were at present beyond financial possibilities, and an artificial increase of price to the consumer for the benefit of the producer, whether by licensing imports, or by tariffs, was definitely beyond the Government's political authority. They could not allow the farmer to build on false hopes, and even if they had the money, their experiences of 1923 showed that the agricultural constituencies were not in favour of subsidies. He 'did not think there was any case for a change of the system of land tenure, and he believed that the control that would have to go with nationalisation would be harmful. What was needed was confidence, and it. had to be recognised that short of nationalisation and control, each industry had to bear its own burden. The State could . assist hv removing obstacles, but the real motive power had to come from the industry itself.

INSTALMENT PURCHASES. Large production and large sales for the sake of cutting down unit costs have been carried very far in the United States, and it is a question whether, for the moment at least, they can be carried much further, says the New York correspondent oi the Times Trade Supplement. To take up what would ordinarily be a surplus of production the American peopje have been encouraged in a multitude of ways to pledge their credit beyond what is prudent. Through the instalment plan millions of them have mortgaged their future for longer ahead than they could reasonably foresee, and it is only reasonable to suppose that some of the less improvident of them are beginning now to feel uneasy over their excessive commitments, if thoy are not, indeed, feeling the irksomeness of weekly or monthly turning over to other hands, as a matter of routine, a considerable part of their wages and salaries. One hears again and again of the man who has paid for two or three motor-cars and has vet to become the owner of one, because in every case he has had to give up his car after making payments on it for a few months. One hears, too, of people doing without meat except once or twice a week and wearing shabby clothes in order to continue their payments on radio sets, pianos or cars. Less serious is the plight of those who give up summer vacations for the sake of buying electric refrigerators, oil furnaces, or other improvements in the house. This forgoing of some real necessaries in order to acquire other things of less real advantage, it is to be supposed, will hardly go on indefinitely. There is certain to be a time when the game will not seem worth the candle. If the recognition of that fact becomes general in many parts of the country at the samo time it will certainly have a markepl effect on trade and manufacturing.

THE LEAGUE'S INFLUENCE. "I have faith in the League of Nations," said Sir Austen Chamberlain, in a speech in London last ftionth. "I made my first attendance at a meeting of the Council of the League with grave doubts, great hesitation, feeling that I was going to assist in the early stages of a great experiment, of the results of which I was profoundly doubtful. I have now attended' 13 or 14 meetings of the Council, and have been present at two of its Assemblies, and 1 speak with greater knowledge. The League has.grown under my eyes and in the three years in which I have been permitted to share in its labours it has grown in strength, in confidence and in influence, and I set first store on the moral influence that it can acquire and less in power. If those who conduct the business of the League, and the public opinion which supports them, understand that what is implied by the League is that every member of it is a sovereign independent State, entitled to supreme control within its own boundaries, and entitled to conduct and direct its own affairs subject only to its general international obligations; that it is the business of the League first and foremost to preserve peace, when without the League quarrels could not bo peaceably settled; that its next business is to contribute to the advancement of the world in those social, industrial and other matters in which progress is dependent, not on how far each individual Power may be prepared to go, but on how far all the Great Powers of the world are prepared to move together—then one may hope that with wisdom and some measure of the good fortune it is reasonable to expect, the League will go on from strength to strength, until that which is pointed out as its weakness to-day—--namely, that it has no force at its command —will be no argument of the future, but a measure of llie progress we have made, because no Power, however strong, no Power, whether a member of the League or not, could afford to disregard the moral judgment, of the w*nrld as pronounced in the Councils of the Assembly of the League."