FACING RUIN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 404, 13 December 1932, Page 3

FACING RUIN

SWISS TRADE HAS REACHED VANISHING POINT. Geneva, Saturday. Trade in Switzerland has reached a disastrously low level. A heavy fall • in the demand abroad and at home for Swiss products has caused a rapid decline in production. ■ A leading hanker stated to-day that j Switzerland might he compelled soon- • er than people imagined to follow the ^ example of Britain and the Scandinavian countries hy going off the gold standard. While the country, he added, was keeping out everybody else's goods, it was unahle to sell its own products because the Swiss franc stood so higli in exchange. . The effect may he gauged from the following circumstances. — The watch industry is iat( a standstill, and the Government has had to come to its assistance financially. Hotels being almost ruined, the Government has felt hound to suhsidise the (industry with 3,000,000 franes (about £170,000). The Federal Railways report a deficit of 27,826,076 francs (about £1,590,000) between January and Septemher of this year. Consequently, depression is gx'owing rapidly, and apprehension is felt in regard to the outlook for the winter. The decline in exports during the third quarter of the year was 42 per cent., compared with the corresponding period of 1931. Imports have diminished in value hy 23p'ercent. Such a, rate of decline in trade, it is generally recognised, cannot continue without hringing economic ruin in its train.