BLIND MAD FOLLY

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1932, Page 6

BLIND MAD FOLLY

MR THOMAS AND TARIFFS.

“WAR DEBTS A NIGHTMARE.”

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, June 8. References to the work of some of the approaching conferences (Lausanne, Ottawa, and Geneva) were made during tlie week-end in speeches delivered by Mr J. H. Thomas, Secretary for the Dominions, and Lord Hailslmm Secretary for War. Mr Thomas said that no country was so fundamentally and financially sound as Britain, and no natiOthttvas better prepared, or more ready, give a real lead to the ultimate lestoiaetion of world prosperity. Confidence must be restored, ancf; their. *fh)St job wfifj get rid ,o < |^ib© ; . war debts and reparations that were hanging like a nightmare "over the world. Regarding Ottawa, he expressed the hope that they would succeed in laying the foundations of permanent machinery, enabling all the, meinbeis of the Empire to contribute to the solution of their common problem. Fresh tariff barriers were not going to solve world problems. War debts, reparations and suspensions were all contributing to the present difficulties, but so was the blind, mad folly of each nation building tariff walls one against the other. Britain had changed fiscal (policy not because “ slfe "Wanted high; tariff walls,, but because she was going to use the tariff not as 'a menace to the rest of the world, but. as a .lever to reduce the tariffs of the world. • -