"TRADE POLICY AFTER THE WAR."

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2754, 25 April 1916, Page 6

"TRADE POLICY AFTER THE WAR."

Sir, —Without wishing to interfere between you and. your correspondent, Mr. G. Hogben, wlio.se letter under this heading appeared in your issue of April 14, may I be permitted to say that the ideas expressed therein are liable t-o confuse rather than enlighten your readers? Mr. Hogben sought to argue the question of after-war trade from a moral standpoint, and you suggest in your article on his address that while he is a reliable guide on educa-' lion, he is outside his domain in pro. r.ouncing on economics. I always took it that education is intended to cover every sphere of human activity, and that the object of educating our children is to enable them to fitly take tlieii places in tho world as men and women. Mr. Hogben, however, rather blandly accepts your rebuke, for he admits ho has 110 authority to speak on the subject economically, but I have yet to ioarn the clifferenco between moral and economic law; if an act is morally right, liow can it ho economically wrong? or if morally wrong, economically right? Acts are committed ill ignorance that are morally wrong; that is, unfit in time, place, degree, or manner, but if the actor is concerned about his own and his fellow's welfare ho soon learnß to commit acts that are morally right. If an act is ririit. it is right in every

sense, but there are degrees of wrongness in acts, as seen by their consequences; it behoves us to cease to do evil ; and learn to do good, false reasoning in respect to moral conduct has caused .much confusion and misery. Economy or thrift, which is neither nig. gardlynoss nor extravagance, but giving nature her needs, nitist first bo an individual propensity, then a household tendenoy, and finally ai national policy, and who will say that want or waste or misuse or excess, if economically wrong', can bo morally right? Mr. Hogben touches a point of vital importance in referring to individual and national morality. The individuals which compose the nation choose certain individr uals to constitute !i Government, or. executive, to carry out their wishes, but the ever-changing inordinate desires of the whole, or "part of tho nation, cause constant irritation and friction, and make desirable and stable social conditions impossible; moreover, a Govern-1 meiit exists to dictate and enforce cer- | tain acts or linos of conduct as . the i expression of social requirement or restraint, and in the exercise of its function it may do good or harm. Should a Government enforce or neglect to prevent an immoral' act, it is nationally immoral; aud should it obstruct a voluntary beneficent moral act of the individual—wliicTi is above all statutory law—its action is tho more heinous, in that it usurps his prerogative and at. tempts to become his sponsor. Nation, ai morality is nothing more or less than the sum total of individual morality, and acts or refrained from under legal compulsion, or restraint, are devoid of virtue, and indicate, the slavisli nature. There is ample time to consider after-war trade; no question . can be discussed profitably until its factors and conditions are normal. —I am., etc., WM. BABR.