WORLD DEPRESSION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 256, 21 June 1932, Page 6

WORLD DEPRESSION

CECIL H.

CLINKARD.

(To the Editor) Sir, — I have just received a print of speeches delivered in the House of Commons hy some leading statesmen, from which. il have extracted some portions, as they largely suppport my previously expressed views, and will I think he of interest to your readers. Reparations and War Debts: Mr. Churchill says— "It is accepted almost without dispute in England that the prime cause of all our troubles is the attempt to pay these huge sterile war debts and reparations in gold. The small and limited supplies of gold which have hitherto served as a footrule or measure in our affairs are wholly unequal for liquidating these gigantic debts. It is this that has led to the consequent cornering of gold and the consequent sterilisation of large portions of gold; and to the automatic and simultaneous diminution in the value of everything else. There is the root of evil." The Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Horn quoted Alison's History of _ Europe to show that it was the failure of the gold supply that ultimately brought about the fall of the Roman Empire. The world, he says, can only be saved by the efforts, intense, immediate, persistent, hroad-minded, and farseeing of the statesmen who are charged with the destinies of the nations. The worst and most pitiable viotims of this terrible economic disaster are of course, the primary producing coun-ti-ies. What has happened to them? They have now to find commodities twice, and in some cases three times as much, to meet interest on their debt as was necessary at the time the money was borrowed. Mr. Churchill said: "I do see two practical forward steps which we may take, and which we ought to take. A major step if possible; and a minor step if the major is denied us. What is the major step? The close and effectual comradeship of this country and the United States of America, the two great creditor nations of tho world and the two great Englishspeaking nations, in an agreed purpose to revaluate commodities in relation to gold up to, let us say, the 1928 level, that is to say, up to a level which affords the producer of prime commodities aud raw materials,

the industrialist or the agriculturist, a reasonablt reward for his toil, etc. "But if this canuot be done, let us fall back in the meantime upon what I must i*egard as the second best, which nevertheless, may prove a highly practical policy and may become the means of our economic salvation. Let us fall back, upon what I will call the magnificent congregation of sterling communities; let us make the best we can of that in default of a better. We may live on that even if we may not thrive. Mr. L. C. M. S. Amery spoke in the same way and eontinued: — -"It is essential when we go to Ottawa, that we should go with our minds made up qpon the general outline of a monetary policy which will meet the interests of the Dominions as well as of ourselves. I am not in the least suggesting that the Government should at this stage make up their minds upon the details of their policy. It may well be that the details of any policy cannot be settled even at Ottawa but will require some expert conference to folldw." Further, he said, clearly the world would be better off if we can eventually establish a monetary system which would enable free exchange to take place over the whole world at a price level stable between different countries; and also stable from year to yeai*, so as to prevent the recurrence of the disasters to which we have been subjected in the last two or three years. Now, Mr. Editor, I personally had hoped that the Ottawa Conference might have brought about an Empire solution or partial solution of the difliculty; but it appears as though the British Government were going for the major solution. I think however, ihat the wider realisation of the cau>'os '-perating will, within a reasonable lime. result in action that will once more allow the wheels of progress to go round; and that while doing our best to help each other over the most difficult period within the memory of man, we may look forward hopefully to better times in the not far distant future. l think I may claim that the quotations given entirely support my previous conteution that it is impossible 1 for any country much less a small country .such as New Zealand, to ereato an independent currency, as silfF&'Osterl bv snmp.. — T n.m. ..

Rotorua, June 20.