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Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1932, Page 4

The motives of recent actions by the British Government indicated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Neville Chambqrlain, in a speech in the House of Coirimons last month. “If the drop in commodity prices were wholly due to monetary considerations, the fall in prices ought to be equal throughout the whole class of commodities,” lie said. Agricultural commodities,, the primary products of th© soil, had suffered the greatest fall. That was due to over-production, which was masked for a long time. It began years before it was perceptible or recognised by the great majority cf people in the world, because the overproduction was passing into stock. A point came when the confidence that things wer e going to be better and' better, and that all those stocks would presently be consumed vanished, and the whole structure crumbled and came to tli© ground. Prices fell calamitously, and then began efforts to restrict not production but the amount of commodities that came on to the market. The result of that restriction was in .some cases actually to increase the production, so that stocks went on increasing ■until the situation became worse than it was before. These facts and considerations made Hm believe that the scheme for the restriction of production in meat would be the most effective that could be devised to bring about the raising of the wholesale prices of meat, and it was a scheme which, with the co-opera-tion of very few countries outside the British Empire, wo could put into operation by our own wish. Tt was an experiment the result of which we should see before long. If it turned out a success we should have bad an object lesson that would bo well worih tforii'in'E consideration «i;i trying to think how it war ble to raise the wholesale commodity prices of the world.