PEACE AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17444, 12 October 1918, Page 8

PEACE AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS.

TO TirE EDITOR. Sis, —Your leading article this morning under the above heading does not discuss the merits or demerits of the questions dealt with. You point out that MrAsquith has nailed his colours; to the mast for Freetrade, and also stato that President Wilson's latest announcement seems to show that he ip not in accord with the decisions of the Paris Economic Conference. Most people will agree that Mr Asquith i» a "back number," and is living in the past President Wilson, on the other hand, may take the samo attitude because he realises that the United States has made gigantio strides that foreign countries have not a possible chance of competing in the United States against her well-equipped methods of production. Now, Sir, presuming for a moment thafl we harness our unrivalled water-power in O'tago on the lines that have been so ably suggested by the delegates representing public bodies from all over Otago, and presuming (that our Government takes its courage in both hands and inaugurates a policy of industrial expansion on the lines that have been making Australia so prosperous in recent years; all this will be more or less resuliless, time and money wasted, if we allow the products of foreign nations to be dumped here and destroy our infant industries. It is an' ceononiic . impossibility for us to pay out our hard-earned money to foreign countries and at the same time become a more prosperous nation. If Smith and Jones buy for £45.000 in Japan a ship which, if built in Dunedin Harbour, would cost £50.C00. they have saved £5000; but New Zealand lias lost £45,000. and a shipbuilding industry has been lost to this country. A scientific tariff has enabled criminal Germany to amass sufficient wealth to come very near conquering the world. * It lias made the United States the wealthiesi country in the world—a country in \?hich all classes share in unexampled prosperity, and in which citizens earn up to 35s pep day. It is making Australia the most nrosperous country under the Southern Cross. We cannot pay our money to foreign countries for the ordinary articles of commerce and become prosperous, but if we use oht money to manufacture the articles we require out of our own raw materials we shall have these goods and retain otrr money as well, and become rich beyond ths dreams of our imagination.—l am. etc., W. Stuart Wilson,