THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 852, 28 August 1933, Page 6

THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT.

TN A LAND of monopolies a "*■ great service is yet to be done for the people under the Roosevelt Plan, which, according to the President, has already turned a downhill drift into an upward surge. For all that, there is just the possibility that Mr Roosevelt is emphasising his drive against monopolies to reassure the people of the country regarding Governmental control of industry, of which they are undoubtedly suspicious. The American investor has probably the most individualistic outlook of any investor in the world, and temperamentally he is so sensitive of Government interference that many economists fear a high degree of industrial disorganisation arising from lack of confidence in Government administration, as such. That this lack of confidence generally is not unfounded may be judged from the general ineptitude and inefficiency of many Government departments, and the fear is entertained in America that there will be a holdup in production owing to a lack of confidence in the recovery of earning power based on the ground that Government control limits the capacity of many industries to adapt themselves to changes in market conditions. The “ blanket code,” too, while it builds up what Mr Roosevelt calls starvation wages, has in it all the elements of dissatisfaction that are bound to arise where no wage concession is made on account of skill. LITERARY HOT-DOGS. ' 1 'HE PINCH of economy is making people pay more thought to the buying of their books, and this gives added significance to Mr L. F. de Berry’s remark that the majority of the best-sellers will not be known in fifty years’ time. Books borrowed from a library are largely acquaintances, but books for reference and re-reading on one’s home shelves should assume the' quality of friends. Time should only make them securer in one’s affection. Unfortunately the majority of the authors of best-sellers do not write them to last. They recognise the conditions of the market. A recent foreign observer of the habits of the English remarked on the fact that when a book by a well-known author was published in London all the papers reviewed it the next day, but it was read and talked about for only a fortnight. Selling best-sellers is like selling “hot-dogfc” and authors are to a certain extent influenced by the commercial necessity of quick turnover. Therefore the builder of a home library which is to be a perpetual source of cheerfulness and inspiration has a more difficult task than in the leisurely days of authorship, for his own discrimination is likely to be affected by modern rush methods. If he would save his judgment from confusion under the constant stream of new 7 literature he must train it to be selfreliant and selective. THE VALUE OF GOLD. TT IS SIGNIFICANT that with the growing lack of confidence in all forms of paper obligations, particularly in France, sovereigns in London have fetched 30s BJd. It will be noted, too, that the wheat agreement can be interpreted only in terms of gold francs and gold cents. Facts like these show that as long as the exchange value of currencies is liable to fluctuate widely, international trade tends to degenerate from a science to a speculation. This is, perhaps, the best reason for welcoming the wheat trade agreement, which fixes a world parity, and is undoubtedly a constructive effort to bring stability to a very unstable world. And while gold still remains the only measuring standard, there must be wide agreements similar to this before the gold standard, as we knew it before the war, can be reintroduced.