ECONOMIC POSITION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14200, 27 August 1920, Page 5

ECONOMIC POSITION.

BIG SLUMP PREDICTED. • AN INTERNATIONAL CIUs/s. (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) (Received Friday, 9.10 a.m.) LONDON, Thursday. Dr. Clapliani, President of the .Economic section of the British Association, in his address, predicted a commercial and industrial slump, more certainly in the United States than in Britain. If America remains a creditor nation she must arrange to buy more outside but her political processes will probably be. too slow to enable her to adjust her policy before the slump occurs. Britain ’s position is better, provided that customers continue offering, but the uncertainty of the war-damag-ed nations doing so, causes anxiety. The chief combatants, except America and Britain, are far from able to pay their way.

Dr. Claplnrm said that if the combat* ants had done what Britain had done, namely, to adjust trade balances within a reasonable time and so avoided a renewal of special credits, the slump would have come not as an international crisis, but as a gradual decline. When the present abnormal -demand for goods ceases there was a reasonable fear, in view of the complicated and dangerous '.currency position' in many countries and the uncertain political and economic future of Central and Eastern Europe, that a genuine crisis, distinct from depression,, may occur with a bad spell of unemployment, the more dangerous because of the high standard of living to which the people were becoming accuslpme-d. . EFFECTS OF WAR EXPENDITURE. (Received Friday, 9.20 a.m.) LONDON, Thursday. The Stuart McGregor report to the Government on trade with Australia in 19.19 has been published, and is largely the same as that already cabled. It adds that probably the full effects of the war expenditure will not be t'elt in Australia for about another two years. Although ready money is plentiful ,and is apparently freely spent on amusements and luxuries, no doubt the high prices of necessary commodities are having a restrictive effect on consumption.