AUTARKY AND " INSURANCE " SIR,—In her review of my
book, Light Out of Darkness, Honor Croome raises a point of fundamental importance upon which I should like to comment briefly.
Dealing with my contention that the interdependence of nations in trade is a source of instability, she states that this belief "is contrary to all the laws of probability in the mathe- matical sense, and, among other things, makes nonsense of the whole principle of insurance." Here, I feel, her criticism rests upon an unsound analogy. For a nation to increase its dependence upon other nations, instead of working towards economic self-sufficiency, is surely not strictly comparable with the insurance policy of "spreading the risk." If it were, the relative stability of the nations enjoying a high degree of self-sufficiency would be difficult to explain.—Yours faithfully,
CLARENCE C. HATRY.
14 Bolton Street, Piccadilly, London, W. 1.
Previous page
