On Wednesday Mr. McKenna delivered an important address to the
Belfast Chamber of Commerce. After paying a warm tribute to the achievements of the Northern Government of Ireland under Sir James Craig, he passed on to a discussion of the principles of trade and showed how much we stood to lose by every act of shutting off trade. We did not gain by the obliteration or collapse of trade rivals. Our percentage of the world's trade was now actually greater than it was before the -War,. yet it was obvious that we were not prospering. Surely this is a very remarkable fact. The Tariff Reformer is habitually impressed by percentages, and thereby fails to appreciate the real nature of our trade. As Mr. McKenna said, " We prosper as the world prospers ; we decline as the world declines." But the most interesting part of a speech that was full of good sense was that which dealt with monetary policy. Mi. McKenna pointed out that America had cured her trade depression, which was acute in the autumn of 1921, by temporarily suspending the policy of deflation. In eighteen months the process of correcting the balance was completed with the happiest results. Then evils of another kind began to appear. In the spring of this year there were symptoms of inflation and the American Government rightly put a check upon that new movement.
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