The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1934. RECIPROCAL TRADE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20282, 17 April 1934, Page 8

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1934. RECIPROCAL TRADE.

ACCORDING to a message from Wellington, another effort is to be made to terminate the position whereby Australia imposes an embargo on New' Zealand potatoes and New Zealand retaliates wdth an embargo against Australian citrus fruits. It is really an absurd position. New Zealand wants Australian citrus fruits and Australia wants New Zealand potatoes. On the plea that there was a danger of the introduction of disease in New Zealand potatoes Australia imposed the embargo, though the real reason for the action was obviously an expression of extreme nationalism seeking the myth of self-sufficiency. Neither New Zealand nor Australia is self-sufficient, and neither is likely, any more than any other nation, to become entirely so. All nations in greater or lesser degree depend on other nations either to supply their wants or to provide their markets. When a German statesman said the other day that Germany was determined to buy w'here she sold, he enunciated no new principle of political economy, but he gave it a clearer recognition as a matter of national policy than most nations do. Britain does it, even though she may not stress the fact. British trade with the Argentine, which New Zealand meat producers watch with so much anxiety, is dictated by the fact that not only does Britain need the meat that the Argentine produces, but she needs also the trade which the Argentine gives her. In the years 1929-32, Britain sold over £19,000,000 worth of goods to the Argentine and bought over £58,000,000 worth. In the same period she sold £15,000,000 worth to New Zealand and bought £37,000,000 worth. The inescapable factor of necessity enters into all of these things, and, without entering into the ramifications of credit and exchange, it is sufficient to bear in mind the simple fact that you must buy where you sell. CAUSE AND EFFECT. ' | ''HE NEW Tramway Board undoubtedly has a legacy of discouragement, but it should take some comfort from the fact that the very substantial deficiency of £19,000 for the past year is traceable to the pursuit of a wrong policy in the management and running of the trams. The stage is set for a close examination of what it costs to carry a passenger to any terminus by tram, trolley-bus or petrol bus, and when that figure is available it must be a simple enough matter to fix the fares on a conservative calculation of the number of people who regard the trams as a necessity. Above all, there should never be a deficiency on petrol buses. If these services do not pay, they should be scrapped immediately, and if private enterprise cares then to take them up the Tramway Board should be the last body to protest against it. A NEW LINE OF STUDY. HPHE CORRESPONDENT who inquires about the Apocrypha is just one of a vast multitude to whom these books are far too apocryphal in the literal sense, that is, hidden, or secret. And when the Bible is reformed typographically, as the General Synod of the Anglican Church wisely recommends, it ■would be a very good tiling to include practically the whole of the Apocrypha in historic sequence, as that would emphasise the function of the Old Testament as a book of history showing the primitive ethical conceptions of the chosen people in a clearer light. Thousands of earnest students of the Bible have never read the Apocrypha, and yet if they were to turn to it they would find (hat it has in many parts a refreshing and moving simplicity, an appeal to the mind and heart, which the Scriptures may have lost through constant controversy. Some of the wise sayings are obviously the result of more human shrewdness than inspiration, and might make us smile, but if we could have smiled more often at human foibles in the Bible there would have been more toleration in the world.