WORLD CONDITIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22023, 4 August 1933, Page 13

WORLD CONDITIONS

TRADE AND UNEMPLOYMENT A NEW ZEALANDER’S IMPRESSIONS. 4 comparative study of the conditions under which unemployed persons existed in the various countries of the world has convinced Mr Stanley S. Scott,, the managing director of Berlei (N.Z.), _ Ltd., who is at present visiting, Dunedin on business, that nowhere else in the world do the unemployed receive such sympathetic and thoroughly-organised assistance as they do in New Zealand. Mr Scott returned to the Dominion recently after an extended tour of the United States, Canada, England, and many of the European countries, where he studied manufacturing and marketing conditions, and he gave some interesting impressions of his tour whilst in conversation last evening with an Otago Daily Times representative. On his outward journey, said Mr Scott, the conditions in the United States under President Hoover were nothing lees than appalling. It was even in the New York Times on one occasion that in the States no fewer than 32,000,000 people were in such a condition of poverty that they did not know where their next meal was to come from. No organised system of relief was in force,, although in some of the States donations were solicited from the business people and were subsidised by the State Governments and food was provided for needy cases. No money or work, however, was given the unemployed. „On his visit to the States on his return voyage, however, Mr Scott found that the vigorous programme instituted by President Roosevelt had brought about an entirely different aspect, but it remained to be seen whether such drastic changes as those aimed at by the new President would become an established fact. A thing which struck him very forcibly during his stay in America was the presence of large numbers of young men, and even young women, walking the country roads in search of work. The problem of providing work for these embryo tramps had become so acute that they were frequently met at the outskirts of the various towns they visited and were escorted through by officials of the sheriff’s department, who sped the workless on their way in order that they would not swell the ranks of the unemployed already existing in the towns. The result was that there were thousands of young people wandering about the country with no fixed place of abode, creating the nucleus of what would in the future be an extremely serious social problem. After having seen the conditions existing in a large number of countries, Mr Scott said he had no hesitation in stating that no other country treated its unemployed so well as the Dominion. When he saw the appalling conditions of the worklesa in the great industrial centres of the world he came to the conclusion that New Zealand was by _ comparison a very bright spot to live in, and its inhabitants had absolutely no cause to grumble. Speaking of trade conditions abroad, Mr Scott_ said that America was obviously feeling the los« of her exports. In fact, some of her industries were working only quarter time. England stood very_ high in the average American’s opinion, a popularity which was not shared by France, whom the Americans considered to have treated the rest of the world abominably. Conditions in England were' now on the up-grade, and a highly optimistic view was held by business men in that country. They had seen the internal troubles through which other countries had passed, and the fact that their own land had escaped those trials strengthened their confidence in its ability to surmount the obstacles to prosperity. At present the rest of the world was looking to England for guidance. While Mr Scott was in Gernwny things were very unsettled, his inability to obtain any news of the outside world through his lack of knowledge of German making his own existence far from pleasant. The Nazi campaign against the Jews was at that time in full swing, and every train leaving the country carried large numbers of fugitives from Nazi terrorism. In' fact, so many Jews fled to Belgium that they became an urgent problem for the Government of that country.

As the result of the tariff wall created by Great Britain, France was suffering acutely from the loss of her export trade across the Channel. Her wine trade with England had been cut down 50 per cent., and the result should be of considerable

benefit to Australian wine manufacturers. The same result was felt by Belgium and other European countries.. which had traded largely with the Old'Country. Mr Scott was keenly interested in conditions existing in Denmark, and he described how, in the country districts, the farmers, their families, and their cattle all lived under the one roof. The cows in Denmark were turned out into the fields for only three months of the year, and were tended with as great care as a valuable horse would be in this country. Ihese cows gave, on an average, about 300 pounds of butter-fat each year. A ; noticeable effect of the depression, continued Mr Scott, was the very small number of people travelling these days. The large hotels on the Continent were all practically empty during his visit there, and when he crossed the Atlantic on the Majestic, a vessel of 75,000 tons, with accommodation for 800 first-class passengers alone, there were only 85 passengers on the whole ship. This percentage of passengers travelling applied:to all the steamers crossing the Atlantic at the present time, and the big mail service* were suffering severely. As regarded the problem of Japanese trade which was facing the'world to-day, an aspect which struck Mr Scott very forcibly was the rapidity with which Japanese firms took advantage of possibilities to extend their business. A. fortnight after the United States and her dependencies had legalised the sale of beer, 30,000 barrels of beer were landed at Honolulu by a Japanese firm. This beer was produced at so low a cost that it wa» able to carry the heavy protective duty and still bo marketed at a price against which the local brewers could not compete. . ' Conditions in Australia at the present moment showed a distinct upward trend, said Mr Scott in conclusion, and it would be only natural that such an improvement would shortly be reflected in conditions obtaining in New Zealand.