A NOTABLE BOON.
In another column I have dealt at considerable length with the action taken by certain bankers with regard to fiscal policy. Whatever may be the varying views concerning that policy, there can be no doubt at all as to the importance of the subject in the light of the prolonged industrial depression through which the country has been passing. To those, therefore, who wish to prepare their minds for an impartial study of the question of fiscal policy, and in particular of Empire trade, I would heartily commend a book which has just been written by Mr. St. Clam Grondona and published by Simpkin, Marshall, Ltd. The book, which is priced at 10s. 6d. net, is entitled Empire Stock-Taking, and its chief merit—and it is a very important one—consists of the masterly manner in which statistics not only of our trade as a whole, but of the various departments of trade, covering a period of sonic four years, are marshalled in a manner which is thoroughly educative. There is no attempt by the author to indulge in propaganda either as regards Protection or Free Trade. The statistics might be quite skilfully used either by the free trader or the tariff reformer, but those who really wish to see what proportion our oversea Dominions trade bears to our foreign trade as a whole, or what proportion the trade of the oversea Dominions with the Mother Country bears to its trade with foreign countries, will obtain this information more readily in this book than in any volume which I have handled in recent years. I shall hope to refer to- the volume more fully on some future occasion, but I do so this week, because at the moment, when there is a disposition to deal with fiscal policy from the standpoint of party politics, there is the greater need fur such a volume as this to be studied by those who wish to base their views upon actual facts.
A. W. K.
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