Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. TRADE WITH CANADA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 124, 7 March 1930, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. TRADE WITH CANADA.

The agitation in Canada for a new trade treaty " itlr JNew Zealand is due mainly to the opposition of dairy farmers in the sister Dominion to the importation of butter from this country. They bear that the effect of the growing- shipments will be to depress prices, though it would appear to (he outside observer, without pronouncing on the case they make, that the opposition of the seasons should permit the trade to be supplementary and not competitive. Apart altogether from any question of the effect on prices, it is significant that, according to the latest New Zealand Year Book, the exports from this Dominion to Canada in 1928 were the largest yet recorded, being £2,469,150 or more than £BOO,OOO greater than in the previous year. Of this increase butter accounted for the bulk, minor advances being shown in frozen meat, hides and skins and wool. The value of the butter sent to Canada in 1928 was £1,565,646, a large increase over that of the previous period. While there has always been a balance against New Zealand, the extent of this has been appreciably reduced of recent years. In 1928 this Dominion imported from Canada goods to the value of £4,23(,<50 (principally in motor cars, to the value of £1,229,595, though less conspicuously so than "was the case four or five years ago), and exported to her in return products lo the value of £2,469,15(0, the trade balance in favour of Canada being £768,600. For nine months of last year New Zealand exported to Canada goods >fo the value of £2,102,121 and received from Canada goods to the value of £3,507,836, .so that the total trade for the period exceeded £5,600,000 and was equal to that for the whole of the previous year. This position is in / keeping with the general trend of business, for since 1926 the trade from New' Zealand to Canada has increased by three hundred per cent. Still there are many of our commodities that could he readily sold in the northern country. In agricultural seeds, casein, vegetables, fruit hemp and tallow the trade is comparatively negligible. It is to be hoped that if a new trade treaty is negotiated its terms will he, in the words of the Conservative amendment in the Dominion House of Commons, “fair and equitable,”—though rot only as regards Canadian farmers, but also as regards primary producers here.