ECONOMISTS CONFERENCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 434, 19 January 1933, Page 7

ECONOMISTS CONFERENCE

DID IT HAVE ANY REAL POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE? FINANCE PAPER'S VIEW. The daily press was informed that there has no political significance to be attached to the gathering of the economists in Wellington prior to the holidays. No one believed the statei ment since upon meeting the gentleI men personaiiy they did not appear to be in search of a health trip or a rest cure. Why not be frank and outspoken? There are urgent reasons for the best advice on the Dominion's finances and incidentally we would have been more satisfed if »Prof essor Murphy had been associated with the other economists in the conference, not that his fellow economists are less able than he, but it is well known that Professor Murphy takes a different view on the exchange question and is urgent in his opinion that wide and drastic economies are imperative and this is the course which the Government seeks to avoid at all costs. It cannot he said that the Cabinet has had the best advice obtainable when Professor Murphy is not included in in the conference. Whether the economists are being asked to devise ways of balancing the budget— owing to falling Customs revenue and unpaid taxation — or of providing an exchange bounty to farmers or of assisting local bodies to meet their commitments or avoiding the necessity of giving effect to the National Expenditures Commission's report, or the reduction of interest will be disclosed ultimately meanwhile the business of the country is hampered hy this perpetual uncertainty a,nd lack of decision.