The Waikato Times With which Is Incorporated Tho Waikato Argus. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1932. IMMUTABLE LAWS.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18804, 28 November 1932, Page 6

The Waikato Times With which Is Incorporated Tho Waikato Argus. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1932. IMMUTABLE LAWS.

By this time one lesson of the economic depression should have impressed itself on the world—namely, that it is useless to fly in the face of economic laws. It is certain that the world cannot emerge from the present mess by chance or good fortune. These good fairies have helped to weather many a storm, but they are now as difficult to find as most fairies. In other words, until the world is content to be guided by economic laws and to set about applying sound principles there is little hope of recovery. The present depression Is very largely the outcome of inadequate or ill-considered steps taken since the war to readjust the ill-balanced conditions occasioned by a period of credit inflation and an orgy of borrowing. Many of the difficulties may have been avoided had economic counsel prevailed, but expediency, private and national interests, and the innate selfishness of human nature have operated to ignore the advice of the economic doctors who had nasty medicine to cure the maladies. The post-war period lias been one of remarkable progress in scientific discovery and invention, leading to the development of many new and important industries, but activity which has thereby been stimulated in these directions has frequently been accompanied by a decline in the. demand for the products of some of the older industries, calling for many adjustments under the altered conditions. In such a time of rapid development the industrial and financial structure requires to be exceedingly flexible and adaptable to changing ciroumstances, and there is also the need for cooperation among all sections of the community to facilitate appropriate action along sound lines and in accordance with true economic principles. Unfortunately these conditions have not always been fulfilled, with the consequence that many of the difficulties now confronting the world are directly or indirectly attributable to the failure to make the required adjustments when the need for them first became apparent. Economic laws can no more be broken with impunity than physical or moral laws, and whether it bo the maintenance at. unjustifiable levels of prices of labour or of goods, the unwillingness io make the necessary adjustments to conform with changing conditions, the erection of unnatural barriers to the flow of world trade, and consequently to 1 lie settlement of international indebtedness or the fostering by artificial means of industries which have little prospect of ever becoming sound propositions, the ultimate result, when all factors are taken into consideration, is the introduction of disequilibrium into the economic, structure and the attainment of a lower average standard of prosperity than might, otherwise have been secured. In the past Governments, employers and employed have all been too prone to mould their policies without due regard to economic principles, and the consequences have been deplorable, It Is only through the

adoption of wider and more enlightened views that the unprecedented possibilities for material progress which exist to-day can be realised.