LATE NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1933, Page 8

LATE NEWS

WAYS AND MEANS

RECOVERY FROM SLUMP;

DISCUSSION AT BANFF

United Press Association—By Elsctrie T«l#erapb—Copyricht , (Received August 25, 2.30 p.m.) , BANFF, August 24. ;. A picture of tho world marking tim« until the United States recovery ■scheme had been further advanced was painted on Thursday by members of the Institute of Pacific Eolations. A discussion on trade agreements n.nd the possibility of bilateral treaties in Paeifia countries was swung by Chinese members into a fall-dress discussion of currency problems. The Chinese members said that, tariffs were in the present state of the world only one aspect, of a l;;rger problem in which exchange stabilisation stood pre-eminent. Tho prospects of tariff agreements, therefore, and of a wide international trade based upon greater freedom of goods depended upon a prior agreement .on. currency matters.

The British members took an almost optimistic view of the possibility of the progress. While it seemed to them highly improbable that n further depreciation of the United States dollar would come, there was a strong suggestion of a view that it would be possible for the loading trading countries of the world to get together ou a currency stabilisation programme some time next year. Once that was achieved it was thought that an embarkation: ttpon a scheme of international prieeraising would be possible by means of the expansion of Central Bank assets in various countries. This expansion might then be followed by largescale programmes of public works and the restoration of employment, to something like normal proportions. Some suggestion was made that sterling might be the currency upon which other exchanges wouia peg theirs, but it was pointed out that this was relatively .unimportant. So long as th» agreement" included Britian, France, the United States, and Japan, sufficient impetus would be given ro. tho scheme to bring others into it. Ones this framework of recovery had been made, the resultant stability and confidence would clear the way for a. resumption of international lending and borrowing, with a further possibility, that trade agreements might be reached which would lower tariffs and clear out the blocked channels of international commerce.