A CHEERFUL OUTLOOK

Southland Times, Issue 21273, 19 December 1930, Page 16

A CHEERFUL OUTLOOK

THE PREVAILING DEPRESSION. THE HON. D. BUDDO OPTIMISTIC. "I have passed through three depressions,” said the Hon. D. Buddo, M.L.C., chairman of the Board of Governors of Canterbury Agricultural College, in his address at the prize-giving ceremony, “and this one is the most drastic I have met.” There was practically nothing, he said, that could be produced at a price that would pay. , ‘There is this in it,” he added, “that for the last three weeks there has been no report of any further tall in prices of produce on the London market.” That, said Mr Buddo, was a hopeful sign that they were coming to the end of the fall. With ninepence a pound for butterfat and sixpence for lamb, food was very cheap. He thought they could look forward hopefully to the future.

“It. is no use discussing how it arose,” said Mr Buddo. “It seems to me that labour-saving machinery has done a great deal to reduce the amount of salaries and wages that are earned-, and the result has been, of course, less spending power." Probably a bigger factor than that, he said, had been unprofitable investments made by those who had secured big profits during the war. These investments dropped until they represented only half their value. “I do not think gold has anything at all to do with it,” he added. “We have been working for the last fourteen years on paper, and we have got on pretty well. Gold, as the recognized standard of currency, has gone. . “I think we may look forward to a change.” He urged a cheerful attitude as an antidote to the prevailing despondency, and said that the cultivation of a cheerful manner would serve to help one's neigh-, hours.