POLICY OF PRICE RAISING

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 5

POLICY OF PRICE RAISING

HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATE i ■ DISCUSSED REGENT DOWNWARD PURCHASING POWERS W British Witness. ~ Rugby, JMi \9. The motion asking for a policy to x*ise wholesale prices was debated in th® House of Commons and Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, again asserted that there would be no precipitate return to the gold Mandard. Replying to the criticism that the Government had missed a great opportunity at Ottawa to establish an. Imperial monetary system he said the immediate difficulty was that the Dominions . would have to grant the power of fixing the rate of sterling, which they would have to accept without having any control, It was conceivable that what suited Britain at a particular moment would not necessarily suit the Dominions. -. Referring to the fall in wholesale prices he said they had diminished since October, 1920, by one-third, and in me case of raw materials by 50 or 60 per cent. This had practically destroyed th* purchasing power of a number of countries. The fall in primary products was much greater than the fall in ifttau prices. The effect of this was that countries had been unable to purchase the goods which Britain produced. Wholesale sterling prices had remained remarkably steady, particularly when compared with those in countries on the gold standard. This showed that they were in the presence of world forces and that by some means, largely monetary, the policy pursued in England had countered the effect of these world force? so far as sterling prices were concernedHe did not believe that it would be possible to raise sterling prices by monetary action alone as long as the world was in a disturbed condition and when no one knew what political changes were life-ply or what financial difficulties other countries might find themselves involved in. They could not believe that any artificial stimulus could restore , the .volume of international trade, which must, depend upon improving world conditions. The motion was carried.