GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

294 WORLD~CRISIS : [\lDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS
ages of total in:.ports with regard to SIX
as follows: 30
countries
Year Great U.S.A. Germany ,France Belgium JIBpan
Britain
and
Luxemburg
1925 18.5 21.8 16.2 12.8 21.8 21.3
1926 18.5 23.0 13.6 13.2 21.9 22.0
1927 19.9 25.0 17.8 13.9 22.7 22.7
1928 20.9 25.6 17.5 18.8 26.3 24.5
1929 21.2 26.0 16.9 20.2 27.1 24.0
It is evident that in 1929 each one of these countries
bought more foreign "manufactures" than in 1925.
The imports of these items did not decine in proportion to
other items but on the contrary increased. This increase
has gone on in spite of the almost universal enactment
of protectionistic or semi~protectionistic legislation during
the same period. One is not justified, therefore, in
as·cribing too much of the present depression to the tariff
factor. Virtually a most normal fact of economic history
since the beginnings of the industrial revolution has been
the protective tariff, and it should not be reasonable to
attribute to this almost first postulate of contemporary
'economic existenc~ the extraordinary crisis of to~day, the
"'most serious in over one hundred years," to any considerable
extent.
No' di~cus;:;ion of the present world~depression, however
short and suggestive, ca~ be complete without a.
reference to the wardebts~reparations complex. At the
outset, it is necessary to observe that it is only from the
standpoint of auditing and accounting that the reparations
paid by Germany to tHe "allies" may be said to have
30 Midland Banlt Monthly Rellie