FACING FACTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19373, 23 December 1932, Page 4

FACING FACTS

THE ECONOMIC WAR. ‘•BE BRITISH.” Remarking that the average person has become altogether confused —so much so that he is apt to lose clearness of vision—owing to the excessive verbosity of politicians, economists, and others who cannot claim either distinction, on the causes of the depression and its cure, Mr C. W. Salmon said on Monday that after all there was only one basic cause for the depression, and that was the war. His remarks were made when he, as vicepresident, was seconding the adoption of the annual report of the United Kingdom Manufacturers’ and New Zealand Representatives’ Association. “The war meant destruction,” continued Mr Salmon, •‘not only of life but of things created by man, and in an endeavour to recreate we endeavoured to recreate weath. This, in fact, we did not do, as you cannot recreate from what does not exist. The effect of this did not stop when the war ended; after that inevitably came an economic war. The war does not end when the last shot is fired. “Let us now face realities. We have been living on wealth which did not actually exist—in short, we have been playing a big game of ‘Let’s pretend.’ All of us who were soldiers know that war meant destruction, and for destruction we obviously have to pay. Many soldiers paid with their lives, and they did it willingly and in what can only be described as British spirit. Surely we have not lost this British spirit? Let those who were not at the war accept with the same British spirit the economic losses which were and are inevitable. Many gained by and after the war; let them now take their losses with British spirit, and accept them with British spirit.” Inflation No Remedy. “Let the game of life and livelihood be a fair one. We each should settle our own difficulties without State aid or without artificial aids. A section

of the community wanted recently to create a high exchange rate, and now they and others still want some form of ‘inflation.’ This cry for inflation is a real danger. With unemployment prevalent and farm prices bad, some politicians and sections of the community are saying, ‘Create more money,’ and thus bridge the ‘SO per cent, difference between cost of production and price received’; give the people more ‘purchasing power’ and more ‘credit’ so that ‘they can buy things and start new industries.’ “But purchasing power and credit are not wealth. If these are multiplied faster than wealth, then prices of production must rise; there would be further inflation, and so on. Where would it stop? Everyone would have more and more ‘money’ in their pocket and yet become poorer and poorer. This was the road that Germany took. Inflation is now to them a nightmare. New Zealand’s road must not be along the road of inflation. “Whatever may be our future, why meet it with the long faces and depressed melancholia that one meets so much to-day? Let us remember how our soldiers faced up to the facts. Many were hurt, many were killed, but they never let go of that British essential—faith. Many of us—including those who fought at the war—have been and •will be hurt in facing the facts. But if we face them with true British spirit there need not be so much fear, nor so much depression of mind as exists in New Zealand today.”