GLOOMY SURVEY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 311, 26 August 1932, Page 5

GLOOMY SURVEY

(Press. Assn.-

DECLINE IN TRADE OFFICIAL REVIEW SAYS PATH OF RECOYERY WILL BE DIFFICULT GAP ALMOST UNBRIDGEABLE

-By Telegraph— Copyright).

Rec. Aug. 25, 7.0 p.m. Geneva, August 24. A world survey, comprising 327 pages, was issued by the League's economic intelligence section, and is one' of the most comprebensive reviews publisbed since the war. It makes gloomy reading. The survey says that the shrinkage in the world's trade, the extent to which prices have fallen, and the failure in confidence, which has almost stopped international lending, have made the gap to recovery almost unbridgeable. Unless there is a substantial scaling down of obligations, despite moratoriums and the stand-still of agreements, there is little possibility of avoiding wholesale default, on a scale making future reconstruction exceedingly difiicult. Discussing the possibilities of the future, the survey says there is little sign of a possible agreement in any single heroic effort, either to raise the average price level or scale down costs of production. Consequently the estimate of the duration of the I crisis as a readjustment period, is impossible. Stronger progress in the arrest of the decline and the readjustment of equilibrium are seen only in Great | Britain, where there has been a re- 1 markable steadiness in price since the abandonment of the gold standard. The return to the gold standard will be difficult in many countries, | but sucli return in the long run will he a benefit to all nations.