TRADE BY BARTER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15467, 11 March 1921, Page 6

TRADE BY BARTER.

, HOW SWITZERLAND DEALS WITH RUSSIA. GENEVA, Jan. 19.—An announcement was made that negotiations have been opened with a view to floating a scheme for getting rid of heavy stocks of goods (of cloth, for instance) to crippled Continental countries by means of a system of barter, taking their goods • in exchange instead of cash or bills. Now, private firms in Switzerland have been carrying on business by barter for much more than a year past. They , have, indeed, been driven to do so because of the persistently high value of , the Swiss franc and the abnormally low value of the money of almost all other! . European countries. Bartering with , Russia has been going, on for at least , two years. Thus, a merchant ships a cargo of goods to Russia from, let us say, Genoa, and returns with the ship full of hides, flax, and bristles. ! It is now proposed to form a clearing house in Switzerland for bartered goods, 1 which is to bo under the control of the chambers of commerce in the coun-1 try, and by this system of barter "it is hoped that the present serious stagnation of trade will be lessened until the exchange improves. The fact is that Switzerland's neighbor countries, without exception, cannot afford to purchase her goods. Thus a cheap Swiss watch, costing 20fr. here, would cost a German 25 marks. With Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Jugo-Slavia, and Czecho-Slovakia the exchange is still worse. A Swiss can get a cup of tea for lit. in his own country, whereas an Austrian would have to pay about 100, kronen for it. The French franc is only worth some 37 or 38 centimes, instead of 100, and the Italian lira only 22 centimes instead of 100. Switzerland, in short, is suffering almost as much from the high value of her money as. other countries from the low value of theirs. The watchmaking and jewellery industry, which used to be second in importance in the country, is doing nothing. The engineering and machinery indus-. try, formerly ' Switzerland's leading industry, cannot sell its products becauso other countries cannot buy them by cash or bills. It is useless for British manufacturers to try to get a market in Switzerland, for the country, with its population of nearly 4,000,000, does not require many .British products, and when she buys them it is chiefly for re-export, which is now impossible. Unemploy- • ment is becoming daily a more serious ! problem, and Geneva alone, with a popu- ; lation of about 110,000, has some four thousand unemployed. Tailors' businesses arc closed half the week, and the motor-car industry, which was much dbveloped during the war, is doing nothing, for there is no Swiss market and no foreign one. Above all, the ; hotel industry, which before the war. j was one of tho most important in the j country, was never in so woeful a plight, largely because people of so many na- , tions cannot afford to come to Switzerland because of the exchange. Tho League of Nations hopes that the Congress which they have called for thing to improve the conditions of transport by rail and water, and thus help to re-establish more normal conditions of trade. Tho different nations are to appoint,; experts it) trade, industry, finance and economics generally to advise , as to tho best measures to be adoDted i and tho best way of setting about adopting thorn. It is even possible that an International Clearing House might! be arranged for barter transactions. f