BIG MARKETS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 November 1931, Page 6

BIG MARKETS

IN CHINA AND RUSSIA

TRADE CREDITS ADVOCATE

VANCOUVER, Oct. 9

Canada, and United States must reach into the Orient for the great markets that will take away North America’s surplus goods and thus keep Labour’s wage levels by providing an outlet for its products. Tariff barriers between Canada and United States should be lowered, instead of raised President Hoover’s war debt moratorium should he extended, • and the whole war debt structure Should ultimately bo revised.

These were the three major themes of William H. Green, as he spoke at a luncheon tendered by Air R. J. Cromie, publisher, of the Vancouver “Sun”, to him and other executives of the American Federation ol Labour and to visiting business men, and newspaper men.

Air Cromie said people who opposed trade credits to Russia and China and to other countries of Asia to-day were just ,as wrong as those .who, thirty years ago, objected to Labour in -North America receiving more than a. dollar a day.

-• “Speaking for myself,” said Air Green, “I would sav that we must extend the war debt moratorium, and I would say that ultimately there must be a revision. As we get further and further away from the Great War, we learn more of Iris, and realise it more clearly. Me ienlise that in war nobody wins and everybody loses.” FRUITLESS HAGGLING “While Labour 'and Capital haggle over hours and terms and conditions, the business and capital structure :>f the United States and Canada is slipping,” was the text of the talk given by Air Cromie. “Capital and Labour are trying to maintain wage and capital structures too high for what business volume there is on this continent. Jf you want to let wage and capital structures, slip back to 1914 levels, as they are slipping quickly to-day, just keep on lighting. But if you want to keep those structures where they were in 1.930 or even where they are today, ve must go outside ol this continent to China and Russia and the rest of Asia, for extra business volume. ‘1 insist on my wage structure being maintained, says Labour. M want my capital structure maintained, -ays money. Labour speaks for its three million members, the aristocrats of * Labour. Capital speaks for its business and banking group.

“But I speak for the Fourth Es-i-ato, the Press, who represent that great middle majority class who are worrying to-day not s o much about interest or wages and hours, but are worrying about the business ami social future of tbenis. Ives and their children. THIRTY YEARS AGO “Thirty years ago on this continent wages for workers were a dollar a day. The conservative-minded at that time claimed that it wages wore increased the country would go to the dogs. Wages were increased even to seven dollars a day; hut the United States and Canada did not go to the dog's. On the contrary, on those wages they developed living standards hig’ie/ than any country in the world. Those wages were increased by 'increasing the local and foreign markets. “To-day there is a type of mind that says, ‘Don’t help 1 China and Russia, or those countriis will develop and put North America out of business.’ People who take that view arc just as wrong as those who thirty years ago objected to the Labour on this continent receiving more than a dollar a day. No one man and no one community can for long grow fat and prosperous while those around him go hungry. And neither can ■my one nation. That is what has caused our depression, and that is what is 'the matter with tire world to-day,” said Mr Cromie. PROGRESS RETARDED “We in the United states and Canada, through the bounties of Nature and through mastering the technique of industry, have at l-sjast, in a material way, built up super standards of civilisation. While it was in the process of building, we. were able to pyramid wages and wealth until both these items' reached peaks that could only be supported by extending our high standards of living to other countries. But our money machine had not the idealism or mechanism to visualise the bigger field, so lacking expansive markets on our own continent. our progress slowed, business hacked up, and then depression started creeping over the land.. Meantime, instead of applying practical idealism in the why of creating those newer markets in the world field, our Labour and Capital and political leaders, too, are now haggling over who shall take the loss. .

“There is no need for capital to lose; there is no need for labour to lose, provided both join hands and go out in a sincere effort to pass on to China and Russia and other parts of the earth some of our standards of living and enjoyments. - Develop those world markets.’