13 DECEMBER 1930, Page 3

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The remedy, he thinks, must conic mainly from the Banks with which the industries most in need of re- organization have " frozen " overdrafts. Acting together the Banks should have the courage to assist those industries which are anxious to Rationalize and reform, and so transform their present " dead hand upon develop- ment " into something creative and constructive. Sir Arthur makes significant observations on the relation between wages and prices, and emplia.sises the immense responsibility of the Trade Unions for maki ll g our system " more directive and adaptive.'' He touches, too, upon a possible reform of taxation so that it may bear less hardly upon productive sources. The lesson that foreign tariffs do not account for the relative decline in the economic position of Great Britain has yet to be learnt— if we are to judge by the sundry Protectionist counsels of despair. In fact, as Sir Arthur Salter points out, this country enjoys, as compared with its rivals, the advan- tages not only of sonic Preferences within the Empire, but of the lower prices resulting from free imports.