TRADE PROBLEMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 144, 20 June 1931, Page 9

TRADE PROBLEMS

MACMILLAN REPORT DAILY HERALD’S FORECAST EMPHATIC CONTRADICTION | By Telegraph—Press Aseociatlon —Copyright.] LONDON, June IS. Professor MacMillan has officially issued a statement that the Daily Herald’s forecast of the Finance and Industry Committee’s report is entirely unauthorised and is a complete travesty of the contents. Tho commit tec hopes to present the report next In November, 1929, it was announced by Air Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a Committee ol Inquiry into Finance and Industry would “inquire into banking, finance, and credit, paying regard to the fac tors both internal and international which govern their operation, and to make recommendations calculated to enable these agencies to promote the development of trade and commerce and the employment of labour.” The committee consisted of the following members: Lord Macmillan, K.C. (chairman), who was Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1924, and chairman of the Court of Inquiry into the coal-mining dispute ir Sir Thomas Allen, vice-chairman of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and chairman of the New Zealano Produce Association. Air Ernest Bovin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Lord Bradbury, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1913 to 1919, and principal British representative on the Repa ratio n Commission. Air R. H. Brand, managing director of Lazard Brothers and Co., merchant bankers, and a director of Lloyd’s Bank. Professor T. E. Gregory, Professor of

Banking in London University. Air J. Al. Keynes, a well-known economist and Treasury representative at the Paris Peace Conference. Air Lennox' B. -Lee, president of the Federation of British Industries. Air Cecil Lubbock, a director and formerly Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. Air Reginald McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank, and an cx-Chanecl-lor of the Exchequer. Air J. T. Walton Newbold, editor of the Social Democrat, who has been in turn a member of the Fabian Society, and Independent Labourite, and a Communist. Sir Walter Raine, deputy-president of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce. Air J. Frater Taylor, a director of Armstrong, Whitworth’s, and other companies. Air A. A. G. Tullock, a director of sccvral banks. Dr Sprague, adviser to the Bank of England, addressing tho English-Speak-ing Union recently, and “expressing the views of three central banks of the world,” said that better conditions would most quickly be established by readjusting prices of manufactured goods to the new level of agricultural products, and not by any attempt to raise agricultural products to the artificial level of manufactured goods. He

r entered a powerful plea that every i thing should be done to hasten read- • justment, and perhaps even to some extent to guide the future production into those channels where an active demand would be likely to be experienced. To stimulate prosperity by an inflation of credit, which, in his view, would only have the effect of maintaining the prices which needed readjustment, would mean to delay the ultimate recovery of the world. I DAILY HERALD’S FORECAST EVENING STANDARD’S SUPPORT Received June 19, 8.30 p.m. LONDON, June .19. Lcspite the official denial of the statements contained in the Daily Herald’s forecast of the MacMillan report, the Evening Standard’s financial correspondent agrees that the report will seriously question the Bank of England's financial policy. He says the committee is justified iu raising the issue that the bank’s policy has been the major influence in our loss of exports, growing unemployment and loss of industrial capital. Some committeemen hold that the bank has fail cd to keep in touch with industrial requirements, and has followed too rigidly the prewar conceptions of the automatic working of the gold standard, and has restricted credit when a release would have led to an improvement in trade. They also contend that tho bank has injured the export trade by embargoes on foreign loans and the , maintenance of unnecessarily high I money rates.