GUNS BEFORE BUTTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1938, Page 9

GUNS BEFORE BUTTER

EFFECT OF RESTRICTIONS ON TRADE.

Professor J. B. Condliffe was hardly stating the matter clearly when he inferred in a recent broadcast talk that Germany chose to go in for guns instead of butter, writes a London correspondent in the “Listener.” It was after the imposition of tariffs by the British Empire that Germany came to the decision to direct her trade activities internally. The slogan “Guns not Butter” meant not that she preferred such a choice. It meant that she had realised the unfortunate circumstance of the trade restrictions. She said, if we can’t go in for trade, we will go in for guns—the only alternative that unwisely was left her. The slogan was not first used in Germany. It was used in England in January, 1934. Germany did not adopt it till the end of that year. It was first used to try to convey to some of the New Zealand people a sense of the logical, grave consequences of this policy of keeping butter glutted in their stores. Germany was willing to trade, as evidenced by her attitude in bartering goods for £6,000,000 of soya-bean for butter-substitute, while the New Zealand Government was saying it “had searched the world for markets.” Oddly enough the Professor mentions New Zealand, but he does not, while condemning trade-strangul-ation, point out that that country has as fierce trade restriction as any in the world. A buyer in New Zealand with £lOO, purchasing goods abroad, has this sum reduced to £5O before he comes to paying for the actual price of goods. He has to pay £25 in adverse exchange, £25 in tariffs (possibly £45). With heavy freights and other charges he might have only £4O left to pass to the manufacturer. The matter might be continued with the observation that New Zealand, like other countries, has an ideology. In this case it is an economic ideology. And every element in a problem which would 'ead to individual liberty is disregarded if it is not an economic tenet.. No business activity, no personal liberty (such as freedom of the press), is assured of safety from a Government coup.