UNITED STATES TO BLAME

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17958, 9 December 1932, Page 4

UNITED STATES TO BLAME

WORLD WIDE DEPRESSION TARIFFS AND RETALIATION SEATTLE MAN’S IMPRESSIONS “For the woijd-widc depression I believe this country is largely to blame,” states a Seattle (U.S.A.) business man in a personal 'communication to a Gisborne resident. He bases his opinion upon the fact that the United States, with its great wealth and trading enterprise, failed to take advantage of the opportunity for lighting the economic balance of the world before it reached a critical stage in its progress towards a crash; and, in fact, precipitated trouble by raising its tariff walls, and so preventing the free international circulation of trade and funds which all economists to-day agree is necessary to the rehabilitation of world economics.

Enlarging on the subject, the Seattle correspondent states“ First we had the stock market crash in the States, nml then the prohibitive tariff. The stock market crash would have been felt, hut I think would hardly have been so far-reaching and would have been cleared un bv this time, but the tariff raise eotnin<r at that time finished the mb. I think tile tariff pronosition was He worst thing that we could have done. Instead of helning the American workman, I do not think anything could have Been devised to work so deliberately against him. We had am ole .tariff before the raise, and the raise started retaliation. Foreign having dropped off, "iid consequently manufacturing dropped in proportion, and the long train of consequent unemployment was on its way. There are somewhere between five and six millions of unemployed in this country at the present time. “There are peonle in this country foolish enough to believe that we could prosper regardless of the conditions in other parts of the world, and I hope the lesson will be learned that we are all just cogs in the wheel, and that what affects one section affects all sections sooner or Inter. There is nothing in this world big enough to stand alone. We are all dependent upon one another; it is a ‘live and let live’ affair from start to finish. We suffer at this age from too much politics, and too many politicians. and I fail to see where political meddling in business has ever brought any marked benefit to the rank and file of the human race. There are scores of instances, however, where it has worked against them—at least over here.”