TRADE AND RAW MATERIALS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22262, 9 November 1935, Page 17

TRADE AND RAW MATERIALS

Sir, —The note and comment in Thursday's Herald, "Root of Italian Trouble," fully bears out the tenor of my recent letter, " Trade and Resources." Lord Lothian, in the address fat Manchester quoted from, refers to the cutting off of trade movements, by tariff and other restrictions. This, in turn, cramps nations in respect of their requirements, and, as Lord Lothian says, it must inevitably lead to war; indeed, it is really the economic warfare which is the sure prelude to armed conflict. In each country the trade barriers have been erected largely because of their purely supposititious value in fostering local industry for the sake of providing employment. The facts are that, due to the perfection of machinery, less and less labour is employed in actually manufacturing the goods. On the other hand, increased specialisation and refinements of servicing, including all the advertising, transporting and general retailing of goods, employ far more people than does the making of them. The Prince of Wales, with his usual acumen, stresses, not so much the making of goods, as the salesmanship factor, thus showing that ho has grasped the really salient features of trade to-day., The greater the international exchange of goods, the greater the employment, each country getting the world's best for the lowest competitive prices. .From an employment point of view, the wise thing to do is to remove all barriers to trade, for it takes men and women to move the goods, and when the goods movo the money circulates commensurately. Restrictions that cause consumers to pay a higher price for fewer goods necessarily decrease employment, besides locking up, as effectively as a blockade, the natural resources. I think we shall presently find that world opinion is moving definitely, irresistibly, along the path sketched by Lord Lothian, and we in New Zealand, with our large, comparatively untapped i-esources, combined with a meagre population, would do well to heed this inevitable trend, and —reaction from "narrow nationalism." Matamata. T. E. McMillan.