MR BRAY’S ECONOMICS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 22 September 1938, Page 7

MR BRAY’S ECONOMICS

TO THK EDITOH OT THE PRESS. Sir,—Mr Y. T. Shand says that 1 support -an obsolete money system. Any system, which has not been superseded by a more satisfactory one, cannot be defined as obsolete until it has been. If a country allows itself to. import goods made here and then has to raise an external loan to pay for them, that is not a fault of our economic system, but of our politicians. Quoting from the “Ottawa Citizen” the above-mentioned person tries to convince me that the Czechoslovakian problem is, as was the problem of the last war, a matter of markets. To a small extent this may be so, but if any one nation succeeded in ruling the whole earth the component countries would still have to export and import. Mr Shand, in concluding, affirms that the economics related to Mr Bray’s must be correct, because certain men, mentioned, have .indicated their desire for economic reform. It is useless a man supporting a change about which he is unable to explain or prefers not to explain. Replying to F. A. Smith, I wish to point out that it- is not so much a question whether the people would support a wholesale issue of money, but whether the Increased demand for imports which that issue would promote could be paid for by our exports without getting hopelessly into debt in countries where we were not allowed to issue, but from which we required goods. I therefore state that for. the issue of money to function without harm a greater value of exports would have to be exported and a restriction on unnecessary imports resorted to; and then, after these two measures had been taken, the extent of the issue would depend upon the amount of our sterling funds. Yours, 6tC ‘ E. J. FREEMAN. September 20, 1938. (This correspondence is now closed. — Ed., “The Press.”!