The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1921. SETTING EUROPE UPON HER FEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 March 1921, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1921. SETTING EUROPE UPON HER FEET.

It is expected in London that the signing of the trade (agreement between Britain and Russia will re-open to British trade the vast Russian markets. Any improvement in British trade with the Continent is of interest to the Dominions, which are now realising more than ever their dependence on the markets of the Old Country. If those markets are depressed, as they now are, due to unemployment consequent upon slackness in trade, there is little or no demand for their meat and wool. Dairy , produce is in a different category, for there is a shortage in supplies and a deterioration in the quality from Denmark, our chief competitor in the winter trade. Before the war, Russia was a considerable buyer of British manufactures, shipping in return products like grain, petroleum, timber, flax, etc. The trade was rapidly increasing when the war ea:~e. Russia is a country of vast potentialities, rijh in mineral and agricultural wealth, and if only given a fair chaflee by her rulers, would soon regain her feet and recover her position as a Great Power. Lenin and his fanatical associates now see whitheN Bolshevism leads to, and admit that in order to make any progress they must encourage capitalists and private enterprise, which three years ago they set out to destroy, preparatory to the erection of the perfect Socialistic state. They have been a long time returning to mother earth. Meantime millions have been killed or died from starvation. The country is a vast one, and its resources are equally vast. If credits necessary for trading can be satisfactorily arranged, it will be good for Britain as well as for Russia. With her abundance of raw materials, this should not be so difficult as in the ease of Germany and Austria, which, like Britain, are both manufacturing countries, and require raw materials more than the finished products. If these countries were able to trade, there would be an unsatisfied demand for all the -wool and meat the colonies could produce. The world is actually short of these necessary articles, but the point is that many of the countries are in no position to buy, they having neither money nor credit. To put these impecunious nations on their feet again is no easy matter. At the Economic Conference, under the auspices of the League of Nations, held at Brussels last year, considerable attention was given to the subject. It was the carefully considered and formally j recorded view of the forty dele-

gates that any assistance rendered would have to be on a v.ery limited and carefully considered plan ; and infinitely more stress was laid by these delegates upon internal reforms in the direction of reduced» Government expenditure and a reform of defective currency arrangements than upon any kind of outside assistance. The only scheme which formed any kind of acceptance was one put forward by an Amsterdam banker, Mr. Briefly stated that plan was based not upon the idea of State, but of private credits, those credits, moreover, only to be granted against the definite hypothecation by the borrowing countries of tangible assets- The idea was to set up a kind of International -Commission to determine the value of the assets offered as collateral and also the precise kind a bf goods which could be admitted within the scheme. Thus, for example, supposing that Austria had sufficiently good assets to warrant credits, those.' credits were not to be used for importing any kind of luxuries, but were to be severely limited to just those articles which it was recognised would most quickly minister to a revival 6f Austria’s industries —in other words, would most quickly restore to Austria a measure of financial and commercial independence., Agaiflst the assets pledged International bonds were to be issued, these bonds to form an additional security for the credits furnished by the banking community to the exporters in Britain who might be dispatching goods to the impecunious countries. The scheme was not taken up with enthusiasm at first in England, but with the coming of the trade depression greater interest was manifested, and, as- we 1 have seen in the cables recently, , an effort is being made to set it in motion. It is proposed that the State should guarantee an amount, from ten to fifteen millions, against losses arising out of trading with the impecuniSus countries, and that for the protection of the State against an abuse of this guarantee there should be set up a strong committee composed of representatives of banking, insurance, and of the Board of Trade. As a further protection to the State, endeavors are being made to establish some scheme of insurance whereby -the trader should be compelled as part of the transaction to effect an insurance of repayment of the credits represented by the goods. The scheme is quite an original one, and its operation will be watched with interest. It is to be hoped it will assist in the resumption of trade between the European countries, for until that comes about we cannot in New Zealand expect a permanent improvement in the prices for our products. that are now lagging.