There is no doubt that, at the Economic Conference shortly to be held monetary questions will occupy Jan important place, and already we find in the official reports of the Washington conversations specific reference to the silver question, It} thas been argued that the fall in the gold price of silver in recent years has been one of the principal factors in the world depression, and fan agitation has arisen that "something should be done" for silver. The advocates of this positive policy point to the fact that China has 3 ulation of some four hundred million, and that all the silver fusing countries together, including India, constitute roughly half the population of the world, From this it is argued that, if the purchasing power of half the world has been thus reduced, obviously this must have had a serious adverse effect on International trade. As against this argument it is, however, interesting to recall a remark made by Sir Arthur Salter in the course of 8 speech made in New York a year we are search-depression which only began Iees than two years ago or searching for a cure that can have an effect in the next year or two, what we want to bear in mind' is that, if China had twenty per cent, of the world's population before this de Pression, she took not twenty per and a half per cent. exports. And so with] all silver-using countries together. If they have fifty per cent. of the jworld's population, they used to take in normal times not fifty per cent. [but ten per cent. of the world's international trade." If it were true that the cause of the diminution in|? the imports of China and. other silver-using countries was. the fallin silver, we should naturally expect' to. find that] ftuch imports had declined much more than the imports of gold-using countries, but the statistics of world rade' show no such conclusion the percentage fall in China' imports from abroad "has recently been less than the corresponding! figure for ¢he important gold-using country, America, The extent of the fall in China's imports of foreign goods is quite naturally explained the combined result of internal ftisorganisation in China, the poor feondition of its export. trade, increase in the import tariff and the] recent development of Chinese. do-Imestic industry, and it seems quite ftonecessary to labour the argue: of the disastrous effect on. we! trade of the recent fall in silver.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.