The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1928. THE RECOVERY OF EUROPE.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1928, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1928. THE RECOVERY OF EUROPE.

TriF. report of the Economic Committee of the League of Nations on the commercial and industrial condition ot Europe should at lea-st serve as an antidote for the pessimism so widely diffused throughout the world since the war. For the experts who compose the Committee arc convinced that trade and production in Europe are now at last definitely on the up-grade. The statistical records for 1927 show a distinct improvement on sill previous years since the war, and what is even more remarkable and encouraging is the fact that the trade returns for Europe are in a comparative sense more favourable tlssui those of the United 'States. No doubt this general revival in the commercial activities of the European countries, considers an exchange, is due in part to the reorganisation of industry which was one of the most imperative necessities imposed upon the world by the war. But though the industrial and commercial systems of Europe are being rapidly reconstructed and restored to efficiency, this chango alone could not have produced the satisfactory results that the Committee’s report emphasies. It is little use producing goods when there is no one to buy them, and it is rather the financial collapse of the Continental States, and the terrible depreciation of their currencies, that lias so long delayed their industrial recuperation. The efforts to restore the gold standard, and so stabilise prices and exchanges, have had their due effect in the remarkable revival of commercial and industrial energy recorded during the past year. But there is another phase of the great problem of international trade to which the report of the Committee directs special attention. Ever since'the post-war Economic Conferences were initiated it has been evident that a strong movement is being engineered in Europe against protective tariffs No doubt heavily penal or prohibitive import duties are always likely to produce injurious effects upon international trade, and the Economic Committee of the League of Nations takes credit to itself for having mitigated this evil in recent years. But the general reduction of tariffs, with the object of ultimately establishing international Free Trade, is entirely a different question. Protection for home industries has been the watchword of fiscal policy throughout the world for centuries—with the brief and solitary exception of Britain—anil the natural desire of the producer to sell in every possible market cannot be expected to over-ride the determination of the Protectionist to defend the industries and the workers of his country against the destructive foix-e of unrestricted foreign competition .