The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : Economic
policy gave rise during the week to one of the few live debates of the present House of Commons. The nominal vent was the Government's rejection of an alleged offer from New Zealand of reciprocal Free Trade, and the fancy of members was tickled by the prospect of seeing Sir Herbert Samuel in alliance with Lord Beaverbrook. This whimsical hope was disappointed, because Sir Herbert Samuel left out that half of Lord Beaverbrook's pabulum which consists of high tariffs against anyone outside the Empire. Since he made the same destructive omission from his own pabulum of an alliance between low-tariff countries, the effect of his constructive criticism was not great, and the question what he would do if efficient producers were made -bankrupt remained unanswered. He tried to answer it by arguing for the expansion of demand as an alternative to the regulation of supplies, but the House, every section of which is equally devoted to the theory of greater demand, failed to learn how it is to be stimulated except on the basis of remembering that producers are also consumers.
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