WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 293, 8 December 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

REPRESENTATION IN LONDON. TRADE COMMISSIONER. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, December 6. Business men here are not greatly interested in the proposal to appoint a trade commissioner to represent the Dominion in London. Rightly or wrongly, the majority of them hold that the State's intervention in the ordinary matters of commerce has not hitherto been beneficial to either the producer or the consumer. Tliey are not, they wish it understood, referring to the necessary war measures, such as the adjustment of the wool commandeer and of supplies to the Imperial Government during a time of crisis. Those were justified by exceptional circumstance?, and though they were not, in the opinion of these critics, carried out with marked ability, they were excusable expedients. But the appointment of a trade commissioner, independent of the High Commissioner's office, would be a costly and hazardous experiment, they say, and not likely to be attended by satisfactory results. XEW MARKETS. Of course this criticism does not cast any doubt upon Sir Thomas Mackenzie's suitability for the position to which the good people of Balclutha would appoint him. There is, in fact, a general agreement that Sir Thomas' ripe experience and wide knowledge of commercial affairs on .he other side of the world should be turned to account in the interests of the Dominion if possible. But two independent representatives in London, perhaps holding diametrically opposite views on important points, is not regarded as an arrangement that would make for harmony or for profitable commercial expansion. The Prime Minister has not yet given any indication of his views on the subject, but he has emphasised more than once the need for the extension of the commercial activities of the High Commissioner's office, and it is possible the addition- of a travelling trade commissioner to the Dominion's London estab- , lishment is in his mind. GOOD XEWS FOR THE FARMER. Mr. J. C. Cooper, the managing direc- : tor of tho Wellington Farmers' Meat . Co., who has just returned from a visit i to England and Europe, struct an opti- . mistic note when addressing a meeting . of farmers at Masterton on Saturday. "For years to come,'' he said, "we are going to get big prices for our meat and dairy produce. The producers of the Dominion are going to have a good time. As soon as the existing stocks at Home are exhausted there will be an improvement in the price of coarse wools. Unless there is a revolution at Home, or some other unforeseen serious trouble, you are going to get prices for your produce you do not dream of to-day." Mr. Cooper's words obtain special significance from his close association with the overseas and though city men express themselves more cautiously, they admit that the. outlook is less gloomy than it appeared to be a week or two ago. "A CERTATX STRINGENCY." The Prime Minister is expected back from his flying visit to the Xorth to-day, and meanwhile he is preceded by an outline of his interview with a representative of the '"Auckland Star," in which he -is credited with saying that the Dominion's ''good balances in London" are now practically exhausted, and that until the new exports are sold there must be a certain stringency. Naturally this frank statejnent of the position is being seized upon by Mr. Massey's critics as an admission that the Government has been over-running the constable, and that the "certain stringency" is likely to prove a very acute shortage of money. But the financial authorities do not take this alarming view of the situation, and agree with Mr. Massey that the resources of the Dominion are capable of bearing all the strain placed upon them. The shortage of money is a passing pha-se in the recovery from the effects of the war.