DIFFICULT YEARS AHEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 187, 8 August 1919, Page 7

DIFFICULT YEARS AHEAD.

FUTURE OF OUR TRADE. SOME EXPERT OPINIONS. Some excursions into the financial future were made by speakers at the complimentary dinner given last night to Mr. H. Buckleton, general manager-elect of the Bank of New Zealand. The guest of the evening, in replying to his health, said that prosperity might be expected with certainty for the next twelve months, because the Imperial Government would be a purchaser ol New Zealand staple products next season. What the position would be afterwards he could not say. However, he thought that New Zealand would enjoy good markets for the next few years, after which severe competition would have to be faced. New Zealand was capable of producing wool, meat, and butter under most economical conditions, but there was a difference between producing butter from land at £20 an acre and carrying on the same operation on land at £40 an acre, with a mortgage on it into the bargain. South America would be a formidable competitor, went on Mr. Buckleton. Land and labour there were cheap, the distance to Europe was shorter, and the peste which had hin-rfp!-<vl the dovelonmcnt. of the naetoral industries there were being rapidly overcome. South America was likely to develop more rapidly than New Zealand in the next few years, but its competition need not be feared if the people of this country were industrious and economical, and the producers did not pay too much for their land. He hoped that his judgment' was wrong, but on the whole the 'outlook was such that business men would be wise to conduct their affairs on cautious lines. If a crisis occurred lie hoped that the political leaders of t!ie country would handle it with courage, tact, and sympathy. If they showed courage the real producers would be solidly behind them. Mr. C. F. Thomas, trust manager for the New Zealand Insurance Co., referring to the period of reconstruction ahead of the country, expressed the 'belief that the same inspiration which enabled the financial leaders of the community to tide over the troubles of 1914 would enable them to achieve the same success in the enormous task to come. One of the greatest needs of the time wae the opening-up and readjustment of exchanges in order to assist trade. (Hear, hear.) This was one of the first things that should be attended to. At present there was a horrid balance against New Zealand in one of her greatest fields of trade. The setting up of machinery to enable our produce to be disposed of without such enormous losses was an urgent matter, for upon such machinery the surmounting of difficulties in the next few years would largely depend.