CRISIS FORECASTED

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 287, 28 August 1920, Page 7

CRISIS FORECASTED

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL SLUMP

dangerous currency position

By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright

London, August 25

Dr. Clapham, president of the Economic Section of the British Association, gavo an address in which he predicted that a commercial and industrial slump would come more certainly in the United States than in Britain. If America remained a creditor , nation, .she must arrange to buy luwe outside; but her political processes were probably too slow to enable her to adjust her policy before tho slump came. Uritaiu's position was better, provided her customers continued their offerings; but tho uncertainty'of _vrar damaged the nations'' credit, and in doing so caused anxiety. The chief combatants, except America and ■Br tain, were far from üblo to pay their way.

If the combatanJa had done vhnt Britain had done—adjusted their trade balances iv-itlr'Jii a reasonable time, so as to avoid the renewal of spicial credits— tho slump would have come not as an international crisis but as a gradual decline -when the present abnormal demand for goods _ ceased. There was reason no fear, in view of the complicated and dangerous cunency position m many, countries, imd the uncertain political and economic future in Central and_ Eastern Europe, that a genuine crisis, as distinct from depression, wculd occur, with a bad spell of unemployment, _ the more dangerous because of the high standard of living- tb which people_ were becoming accustomed.-' Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.