Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1939. REGULATION OF IMPORTS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 October 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1939. REGULATION OF IMPORTS.

« “JN view of tlie war, we are compelled to reorganise the whole procedure in regard to import licences for the January-June period next year,” the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) stated in the House of Representatives last week. What exactly the changes in prospect amount to has yet- to be disclosed, but it may be supposed that war conditions in themselves will do a good deal to cut down the volume of available imports.

It is, of course, very necessary,, as the Minister observed, that the money available' should be spent to the best advantage, but in view of the extent to which automatic restrictions are likely to operate it should be possible to dispense, in some branches of trade, with measures of regulation in detail which have been found in working practice extremely vexatious and burdensome.

Another statement by the Finance Minister, which appears today, indicates that conditions of import licensing are to be modified very little for the time being. Applications relating to essential goods are to be considered on their merits, but on the other hand additional licences are not to be granted on account of increases in importers’ costs.

There are a number of grounds on which an overhaul of the whole system of regulation is called for. Not the least of these is that, as a means of cutting down the total volume of imports, the regulations have been to an extraordinary degree ineffectual. The facts are well brought out in the latest bulletin of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, prepared in consultation with the Department of Economics of Canterbury University College. The object of the regulation and restriction of imports of course was to build up the seriously depleted balance of sterling funds standing to the credit of the Dominion in London. For the twelve months to June 30 last, however (a period in which the restrictions were in operation for over six months) >the excess of exports over imports was the lowest recorded since 1930.

Exports for the twelve months to June 30 last were valued /at £4.07m less than for the previous year, but imports, on the same basis of comparison, showed a reduction of only about film. The export surplus amounted to only £1.35m, or about. £3m less than for the twelve months ended June, 1938. For the six months to June 30 last, the value of imports was over £lm greater than in the corresponding period of the previous year. These negative results are in somewhat staggering contrast to the immense amount of trade disorganisation and confusion occasioned by the imposition of what were intended ’ to be drastic restrictions. The whole outlook has now been altered by the outbreak of war and in the conditions thus established an opportunity may be, found of readjusting the trading balance and makinggood the deficiency of London funds. Prior to this dramatic intervention, the position was somewhat remarkable. In its efforts to regulate imports, the Government has brought much adverse criticism upon the Dominion and complaints, from Britain in particular, of attempts to Institute one-way trade. In the months in which these charges were being launched so freely, however, the actual position was that the Dominion was maintaining its imports.at an abnormally high level—a level flatly inconsistent with the establish nfent of sterlingbalances in London adequate to meet debt and other obligations. That position had been modified very little in the latest period for which detailed figures of trade are available, but it should be altered automatically as the restrictions the war is bound to impose in various branches of import trade make themselves felt. AMERICAN CONFIDENCE. ACCORDING to a Washington cablegram published on Saturday, President Roosevelt reiterated his conviction that the United States will be aide to abstain from war in Europe, “and said that since the United States was not at war and was ndt going to be, he saw no public interest in war plans and industrial mobilisation now being considered by, various Government and private boards.” Presumably this statement must be regarded as a declaration, for what it is worth, of complete confidence in the ability of the Allies to make head against any combination of forces that may be ranged against them in Europe. The statement perhaps implies that President Roosevelt does not believe that Russia and Germany, on the rejection of their dictated peace proposals, will enter into a military alliance in the hope of defeating Britain and France and engaging in a wholesale partition of European States. It was intimated in a Berlin communique at the end of last week that the Russian and German Governments would now make a joint effort to end the war and that: “If their efforts were unsuccessful they would jointly consider the necessary measures.” The Nazi Hope evidently is that this announcement will be read as embodying the threat of a SovietGerman military alliance, but while the partition of Poland and the imposition on Estonia of terms which make her subservient to Russia are realities, it has yet to appear, as various comments in today’s news point out, that the Soviet is prepared to become Germany’s military partner in support of a general policy of aggression. That vital question remains to be determined and it may be true, as a London commentator has suggested, that an essential feature of the situation now reached is that Hitler has been compelled to abandon his dreams of unlimited territorial expansion at the expense of Russia and the Balkans. The new Russo-German trade agreement, though it provides for a great increase in trade, may do comparatively little to modify Germany’s existing economic difficulties. Account has to be taken of the restrictions meantime imposed on production in both countries, of serious shortages of transport equipment and of Germany’s definitely limited ability to pay in manufactured goods for the commodities she requires. It is fairly obvious that if Russia wished to give any considerable economic help to Germany, she would have to do it from a more or less philanthropic standpoint, or at best to take heavy risks as a creditor. Although Poland meantime has been overrun and partitioned, there is no specific evidence as yet that Germany is assured of the military co-operation ol Russia or even that she is'absolved from the necessity of maintaining strong forces on her Eastern front. '' It is no doubt on an assumption that Germany’s position is not appreciably better than it was that President Roosevelt finds it possible to affirm so confidently that the United States is not going to be involved in the war. The President’s own sympathy with the democracies has been expressed repeatedly and insistently and there is evidence of an increasing perception bv the people of the United States that in the last resort their own security demands the victory of the Allies, ft is therefore reasonable to interpret Mr Roosevelt’s latest statement as implying that in his opinion Germany has gained somewhat limited advantages by her agreement with Russia and that be discounts alarmist reports of an impending expansion of the fqrees the Allies are pledged to defeat.