PRICES FALLING

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 25, 25 October 1920, Page 5

PRICES FALLING

ENGLISH PHENOMENON.

Prices in. England are beginning to ialL Thb process is no steep slopo movement, but ft gradual process, and is-een-This view was expressed recently in Sydney l>y Mr. C. P D. Amies, buyer for the Perth branch of the Australian firm of Toy and Gibson, who had iust returned after a ten months' business trip of England. France, Belgium, Holland, China, Japan, and America. Dunns that period he saw much of interest apart from the commercial vicissitudes due to the war. England, he said, was the most prosperous country, but although better positioned than France and others in the commercial sense, she was not well off from the living point of view. It was cheaper in many ways in iran.ee, and so rapid was the process of rehabilitation proceeding among the French that production was now GO per cent, of normal. But France was suffering on account of the exchange, and the harmful effect of this was reflected in many ways. In, for instance! its trade relations with Australia. Goods now imported into Australia from Franoc were assessed on the pre-war value of the franc; no allow■inco has been made for the depreciation and the exchange anomaly, and as a result French traders wero unable to wort the potentialities of the Australian marVet. Bitterness in the mind of the -FienoK merchant and financier was the resultant, and Mr. Amies cited his personal experience. Much as ho desired to purchase in France ho was unable' to do so «n account of the position referred to.. In the course of his travels in Bel-, gium France, and England, Mr. Amies found the Gorman agent much in evidence. ' Trade is proceediae between, Germany and the countries named, and also America. Six mouths ego he found a determination among a largo section of English people not to trade with the old enemy, but now the realisation thatnnless trade facilities are afforded horGermany will not bo able to reconstruct her 'economic fabric, and tbjis pay her indemnity, has brought about a change iu opinion, and now trade is proceeding quietly. German agents as soon as they land in England bto made ciynie of the disfavour in which they are held.