NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21518, 15 June 1933, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TOO MUCH THEORY " 'Things are in a hopeless tangle.' 'Life is very difficult.' 'There doesn't seem to be any way out of the mess.' Meanwhile—as those are beginning to discover who have become thoroughly bored with destructive criticism—lifo proceeds very much as it has-always done, and on the whole is not nearly so complicated as the theorists would have us believe," says tho Morning Post. "The loner orders of Nature, plants and animals, appear to live and struggle in a spirit of comparative serenity, not to say cheerfulness. It is only man who has evolved the distressing habit of worrying himself to death. Can it be that the real trouble with us is not so much a lack of brains as a superabundance of problems and perplexities that have no reality outside the brains which conceive them:-" COMMERCIAL EDUCATION In a message to tho British Association for Commercial Education, whose object is the furtherance of British trade through the improvement of the personnel employed, the Prince of i Wales said: —"To-day, if ever, we need j a high standard of efficiency in all ranks ■ of commerce to enable us to compete successfully in the markets of tho world; and upon our success depends in no small measure the solution of our tragic unemployment problem. In wishing all success to the work of the association, let me emphasise the need for close co-operation between those responsible for the conduct of our commercial enterprise and those directing all branches of education. The value—the vital importance—to business of trained intelligence and of training forTeaderI ship, as well as for the rank and file, J needs to be constantly remembered, and j we can only secure this through comj plete co-operation." WEAKNESSES OF SOCIALISM In the course of an article defining Capitalism in Lloyd's Bank Monthly the Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, warden of New College, Oxford, writes:—"ln Socialism there may be forces adverse to material progress. Crime and vice arc in the main productions of poverty. It is, then, a vital concern for the moralist that the world's economic dividend, which is still pitiably low, should be sensibly and steadily increased. Any fool can make the rich poorer. It is less easy to make Jthe poor richer. The doubt which every serious inquirer must feel as he reads of plans for setting up the Socialist State is whether it will not fatally hamper economic progress, nay, more, whether it will not tend to diminish tho all-too-small dividend upon which the human race is now living. Such doubts are surely not illegitimate, when we reflect upon tho vast additions which have been made to the wealth of the world under Capitalism, the improvement in the general human lot, which Capitalism has made possible, and the deadening influence upon enterprise and imagination, of State privilege, State monopoly, and State control." ECONOMIC REALITIES M. Flandin, a former French Minister of Commerce, gave a lecture at Cambridge on "The World Economic Crisis." Speaking in French, ho referred to the difficulties of economic disarmament. He said that the abandonment of restrictions would endanger the stability of currency. To bo effective it would have to be simultaneous. Then there was the effect on private interests, which would bo prejudiced by such action. Mr. Maynard Keynes wanted to go back to the conditions prevailing in 1925, when prices were high. Those high prices were the result of partial inflation. The only way to get out of the crisis was by lowering costs of production and adjusting output to market possibilities. Mr. Keynes proposed to increase the demand for goods by creating more money. In the speaker's opinion, it was not a question of the amount of money, but it was the rapidity with which it circulated that would bring prosperity. Referring to Mr. Keyne's proposal for the issuing of State loans for public works, M. Flandin asked how the loans were to bo raised; at what rate of interest; and what would be tho repercussions? Tho Budget would have to he balanced, or peoplo would not invest. The rate of interest would be raised by tho large demand, and the Government would be unable to borrow cheaply. The banks would advance only for short periods, and if money were borrowed for long periods the public would want higher rates of interest. High rates on public loans would burden the Budget for* inauy years to come. If the works proposed were non-productive there would be a heavy burden on finance, and if they were productive prices would fall. The world would not get out of the present crisis by creating fictitious means of payment for tho disposal of the realities of indebtedness. They must cease to believe in monetary miracles. He was afraid of large schemes of indefinite extent, and preferred to keep nearer to the earth ayd to economic realities.