PINCHING THE EAGLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 300, 19 December 1922, Page 5

PINCHING THE EAGLE.

■ DOLLAR V. SOVEREIGN. SIGNS OF TRADE-WAR. The sudden appreciation of the pound sterling in America is apparently no mystery to the importers of New Zealand. According to tbcm, as explained to a "Star" representative to-day, it means that the manufacturers and financiers of America are getting down to tin tacks in the matter of retrieving the trade lost of recent years as a result of the appreciation of the dollar. At the beginning of the war, when neither England nor America could supply the colonies Japan had a groat opportunity, but lost it through poor quality of goods and failure to keep faith with importers. Then America had the opportunity, but the dollar went to such a high rate of exchange that the prices of the goods sent merchants looking for other sources of supply. "Now, in our experience of American trade," stated Mr. G. R. Hutchison to the pressman, "a stage has been reached when we put all the trade we possibly can into British and Australian channels with the idea of getting better value, and giving the public better value. For every pound sterling we sent out to America we were getting only 12/ to 14/ worth back, such was the effect of the rate of exchange. I am hoping that in spite of the parity of the sovereign being nearly restored the trade will stay within the Empire." Mr. Hutchison quoted some instances of how the trade had swung in the last year or two. Before the war America exported to tfhe colonies large quantities of aluminium ware; now, he believed, Britain manufactured the major portion of such ware produced and sold within th 6 Empire, and was doing it ibetter and cheaper than America. Australia had largely filled the gap 5n tinned fruits and dried fruits, and "had filled the (bill in paints when Britain could not do it. Even in light motor c&rs England tad sprung into prominence, and she was not going to give up that trade lightly. On account of the Smyrna supply of dried fruits (being cut off by the GraecoTurkish war, America bad recently got in again to some extent, owing to the values (being lower on account of tfhe drop in the price of the dollar, and the same thing would apply to other lines. New Zealand, in common with other countries, had lost a great deal of money to America on account of the appreciation of the dollar making values very High, said Mt. Hutchison, but it lhad resulted eventually in America losing a very large percentage of the trade of the Dominion, which had swung to Australia and Britain. "There is going to 1)0 a fierce trade competition now, with America trying Ito get "back," he concluded. "But 1 hope that it will succeed only to a limited extent, for trade within the Empire has helped the Empire more than anything else to turn the corner, and a self-contained Empire is t/he keynote of permanent prosperity."