STERLING AND INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 81, 2 October 1931, Page 6

STERLING AND INDUSTRY

Cabled reports received to-day of a sharp revival in the Bradford woollen and other industries as a result of Britain's departure from the gold standard are gratifying so far as they go. Time, however, is yet to prove whether this activity is a flash in the pan or the beginning of a period of all-round improvement in industry. New Zealand is directly interested in any material change in the course of British industry, because the United Kingdom is the one great free and open market receiving the exports of this Dominion, and that applies to some 80 per cent, of the whole. - Britain's activity is reflected ma steady and reasonably remunerative market'for N«w Zealand's principal exports, and depressed trade conditions in.the United Kingdom invariably mean depressed values for New Zealand wool, meat, and dairy produce. It is held by many observers of the course of economic events during the past two or three years that lack of confidence is at the root of all the world's present difficulties. But it would not seem wise on the strength of this latest rapid recovery of British trade to jump to the conclusion that confidence has at last returned and has come to stay. Foreign countries can be trusted to find means to protect themselves against results arising from depreciation of the British pound, and, in fact, some have already done so. Of course, any change for the better in British trade should be good news to those Dominions who have so much to sell in the British markets, but it would be wise to temper optimism with caution until that improvement has stood the test of a few months. At present its duration is but a few days.