BALANCING TRADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22429, 27 May 1936, Page 17

BALANCING TRADE

Sir, —Dr. E. P. Neale's exposure of the futility of attempting to arrange for what the politicians are pleased to call " balanced" trade is timely. Never in the history of the world has any such scheme succeeded, primarily because it overlooks the fundamental fact of economics that trade is an individual matter essentially, and not a "mass" affair. We can no more have peace and prosperity by State interference with the natural rights to trade than we can have physical health while ignoring nature's hygiene and laws of health. In the cable news of the same issue of the Herald as the report of Dr. Neale's views was published, it was announced that Sir William Beveridge had been appointed as chairman of a committee to investigate Britain's foodstuffs problem in the light of war contingencies. He, in collaboration with a committee of nine other economists, is the author of a book, " Tariffs, the Case Examined," in which he fully exposes all this "balanced trade" bunkum, giving similar illustrations as the up-to-the-minute ones by Dr. Neale. He also observes: —"Gain through freeing imports from taxation does not depend on other countries doing the same. For other countries to tax our exports to them is an injury to us and an obstacle to trade. By allowing free imports we allow competition to determine what goods we can get most cheaply by making them ourselves, and what goods we can get most cheaply by making something else to sell abroad in exchange for them." Yes, and that is the only method by which it is humanly possible to discover what are and what not economic industries. If the politicians would leave trade alone it would balance itself. Sir William also caustically comments that political attempts to regulate trade usually result in the industrialists devoting more and more energy to political progaganda and less and less to their proper business of manufacturing. Matamata. T. E. McMillan.