INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21115, 24 February 1932, Page 12

INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS.

Sir,—Professor A. G. B. Fislier, professor of economics at. Otago University, hack home after a world tour, is reported to have told the llerai.d that " The most obvious fact suggested by world travel is tho interdependence of nations," and, further, that " everyone gains the impression of people struggling rather fntilcly to control world forces hy narrow local effoifs." The remarkable | thing is that there are so few people in this country who realise that the world is one economic unit and that it is, therefore, an act of folly to attempt to rehabilitate industry hy treating (lie depression with its unemployment as a local malady. It is just because the majority do not appreciate the true position that we find our representatives in Parliament lost in a maze of economic suggestions based on parochial requirements, fogged by smokescreens of rival industries. There was a time when the British Empire held what was practically a monopoly of world trade. It had sufficient influence to control production, markets and prices. But man, in his ever-increasing lust for achievement, lias created the motor and the cinema. These have broken down the walls of ignorance which separated nations, and the world has become a mart in which all peoples may participate. Some of these people have not yet attained the standard of living to which we are accustomed. They are at present content to work long hours under unhealthy conditions, without recreation, and for what we consider a mere pittance. They are satisfied with inferior housing and a low diet. It follows naturally that they are capable of putting on the market goods which have the appearance of equality with ours at prices so low that wo cannot possibly compete with them. Our capitalists, our wage-earners, our politicians, our economists (excepting such men as Professor Fisher), are hunting for tho needle of prosperity in the haystack of ignorance; and (ho man in the street is surprised at the failure of Parliament, with its .recourse to economy commissions and its juggling with exrhange, to grapple with the situation. They are, of course, largely unaware that at Geneva the International Labour Organisation, composed of representatives of Governments, capitalists and workers, is conducting research work on the basis of the world as one economic unit. Professor Fisher will accomplish a national awakening if ho succeeds in bringing Parliament to a realisation that it is futile to attempt to control world forces by local efforts. C- E- Archibald.