WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1931, Page 7

WELLINGTON NEWS

PROS?KRITY COMING

(Special Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, October 27,

For months past we have had men, mostly temporary visitors to the Dominion on business, endeavour to buoy us up wiith hopes of revival in trade and business. They assure us that prosperity is coming and we cannot quarrel with them on that score. It is quite safe to predict that prosperity is coming, for no one wifi believe that depression, with all it means in hardslr'ps and tragedies, is to be the chronic condition of the world. The depression must pay, or which is the same thing there is bound to be a return to prosperity. No one, however, can say when it will reach the shores of New Zealand. The foundations for the revival in business are being laid in all countries including this Dominion, for closer attention and greater care are being devoted to both public and private expenditure. Very few people are spending lavishly, indeed it is safe to say that they are not spending as much as they coin'd spend and would spend were there less uncertainty. Employers can do much to remove this uncertainty. There are about 50,000 unemployed in the country, but there are probably more than three times that number in fulHvoi'k although the wages ami salaries tuny not be up to the level of what they were. If till wage earners oil the Pay-roll were given reasonable assurance of the safety of their jobs in order to relieve their fear of being added to the unemployed, that would revive their normal purchasing activities. If this were done 'the domestic trade of the country would expand by at least 5 per cent, and that would tend to increase, because the expansion in expenditure would tend to the employment of others. This will not mean , prosperity, but it will be a step towards j jt ' . . ~ I A real revival of prosperity in -New Zealand must emanate from without, I just as the depression came upon us from outside sources. We felt the depression the moment out staple products declined in price, and so there wi.'l be good times for us when prices show , some improvement and some stability j at the improved level of prices. We have no control over world prices, our task is being undertaken in a feeble frightened manner. Will prices rise, and when , J j That is a question that most people 1 would like to see answered. All human' history teaches plainly that business ■ tends to fluctuate iifl irregular cycles, j swinging from a point below the theoretically computed normal to a point well above and back again, giving us apparently an endless transition from good times to bad and vice versa. There | is no doubt ill the five years of unparalleled prosperity ~mxper.ieP£e d : . ,.,,j.»,| i 920-29 that even the most experienced of business men, bankets and llnancieis were, led astray. Still it must be obvious to all that the depression has been made worse than it need have been because of the great lack of confidence throughout the world. Confidence once shaken takes a long time to revive, but it must revive at some time. It will not come upon us with a burst—it will come timidly, slowly, and the harbinger of that return of confidence is to be seen in Britain now. The general election has given the country a strong and powerful Government. It is powerful because the mandit it has received from the people is in the nature of a dictatorship. The National Government went to the country without any particular programme. It asked for a mandate to deaf with the crisis in any manner that the National Government thinks necessary. There is a strong Government in Britain that has engendered conridence in the Cuited Kingdom. That confidence is seen in the tmproicment in the prices of Stock 'Exchange securities, and that confidence has spread to the Dominions. In New Zealand last week there was a distinctly better tone on the exchanges and bank shares and gilt-edged securities advanced rapidly a.nd they look like staying up. The confidence in Britain will spread to other countries, and 'if reparations and war debts are wiped off international slates, and that seems certain, there will be a prompt rise in confidence and in business prosperity is coming.