TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20909, 14 September 1939, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Reasons for Bad Trade “The troubles of the export industries at the present day are not merely a symptom of the prevalence of irrational policies regarding industry and trade; they are still more a symptom of the general disease of a world ridden by virulent political nationalism,” writes Mr Lionel Robbins, the economist, in Lloyds Bank Monthly. “The origin of the policies under which our exports languish is only partly economic; it is partly, perhaps predominantly, political. Any diagnosis of the present orgy of nationalist restrictionism which failed to take account of the baleful influence of the struggle for military ascendancy would be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark; it is difficult to over-estimate the extent to which, ever since the Great War, the struggle of the pressure groups for restrictionist privilege has been aided by appeal to considerations of military security, which, in the present chaos of national sovereignties, have a rational basis in national interest. Nevertheless, there is reciprocal causation. Restrictionism is in part due to rampant nationalism and the extraordinary sacrifices of wealth which it involves, but rampant nationalism is also due in part to economic restrictionism.”