NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20405, 6 November 1929, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE CONTROL OF CREDIT. Discussing tho demand for an inquiry into banking and credit, which Mr, Snowden has now announced, tho Times recently expressed tho opinion thfit the experience of tho past twelve months and particularly of tho last six, has demonstrated boyond all reasonable doubt to all qualified obsorvers that there is no other remedy than that which has been applied. "The object of raising the bank rate is simply to preserve British industry from the serious embarrassment of a contraction of credit which would havo enveloped it if tho export of British capital had been allowed to continue," it observes. "Special pains havo been taken by the authorities in recent months to test by experience how long this country could afford to keep rates lower here than elsewhere without imperilling the credit position. That experience has clearly demonstrated to all who have eyes to see with that so long as money could be borrowed cheaply here and lent dearly abroad capital would flow abroad. Nothing but a rise in bank rate could check it. Gold exports havo been on an unprecedented scale in the last twelve months, and although some affect to believe that the country would be no worse off if it were denuded entirely of gold, they have carefully abstained from suggesting any workable substitute. A credit system, if it depended entirely on paper, forged or otherwise, would, as the experience of the last ten years of the Continent has proved, overwhelm trade and industry in disaster.". ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. From town-planning has developed the idea of ltfying down schemes for the regional development of colonies. "The case of a town may be relatively simple, and for a country whose possibilities are well established a definite programme may be feasible, though outside causes such as international markets may interfere with every well-laid plan. With a complex organisation such as a world-wide empire, however, schemes "must be cast on flexible lines," says a writer in Engineering. "Departures from the ideal are forced upon us from the very beginning and as we cannot remake our earth and distribute its population or its physical characteristics to meet our present ideals of development, we have to make the best of the conditions we face. It is said that ports of call for ocean steamers should not be less than 300 miles to 500 miles apart on a coast. Railways built running inland at such spacing can be fed by branch lines and roads so as to cover the whole interior for some distance back—in theory. But in practice we meet the difficulty that better harbours may be possible 200 miles to 600 miles apart perhaps, or that the interior makes it impossible to run a railway cheaply inland at one point, and possibly worthless to do so at another, and thus we aro driven away from the principles wo start with. Then again some new development in transport, some new discovery of mineral wealth, some new turn of science which makes an economic commodity of something it was not formerly worth troubling about at all, or some new financial or international combination, will force our rules to bond and givo way before the insistent demand of tho present, in order that the practical advance of civilisation may continue."

CONSERVATIVE POLICY. Some characteristically frank advice has recently been given to the Conservative Party by the Duko of Northumberland in an article in the Morning Post. He bluntly condemns the extension of tho franchise "because our statesmen had discovered—and the discovery caused them great astonishment —that women could display fortitude, devotion to duty and selfsacrifice in a great national crisis. This patronising and insulting attitude to women, duo to ignoranco both of history and of tho sex, has met with its just retribution at the last election." He considers that tho concession \yas dictated by expediency and a desiro to forestall its granting by some other party. Describing tho advent of tho Labour Government as "the triumph of a party which has outbidden the others by promising a new world, in which hardly one, if any, of its leaders believes " tho Duke of Northumberland proceeds:—"The next phaso will bo comploto disillusionment with Socialism, which will probably be followed by complete loss of interest in party politics as a remedy for presentday evils. Tho only remedies for these evils are relief from taxation and a policy which will protect our industries from foreign competition; and any party which offers any other remedy is guilty of charlatanism. It is just possible that the Conservative Party might adopt such a policy, but if it is to succeed it must be prepared to go into the wilderness for a time and to show that it has convictions, and does not care two straws about the next election. There is no doubt that tho country is still sufficiently sound at heart to support a party which gave up vote-catching for a great Imperial policy, but it has been so demoralised that it would take time to recover its ideals and its faith in politicians."