DOMINION EXPORTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 103, 5 May 1926, Page 4

DOMINION EXPORTS.

VALUES ANr> VOLUME. TREND OF PRODUCTION. Because Now Zealand exports in 192.3 were valued at £54,521,031, a* against £27.937,011) in 1918, it does not follow that production lias doubled in till , interim. Nor would it be correct to assume that production has remained stationary, leaving increased [n-iees to account for the difference. To estimate ilie relation between these two contributing factors is n task for the Government .Statistician, and this i> how lie deals with it. He takes the year 1900 as a starting pomt —any other year would have done just as well—and notes that the '"recorded value" of tlie exports in lU»u year was f 13.035.240. He then takes the four figures. 1000, as an arbitrary nif oilier to represent in one column the total volume of exports for that year, and in another column the volume of exports per head of the population. Having, it" not at his lingers' ends, at any rate in liis oflice files, a record of the quantities of each class of produce sent out each year, as well as the population statistics, he is able to notify not only the present value of exports, but the value the same quantity of goods would have amounted to at 1900 rates. In this way the following table lias been compiled:— Index numbers of "True" Recorded value. Volurae.of exports. Year. £ Total. I'er head. I'.IOO 13,0.").",.2-4!! 1000 100(1 HUH 121,1)44, lti/t 141! l 10114 1!I14 1517 lOCS i!iir> ;!i,o42.fi(;ii 1540 1075 I'.tlO 32.'.17."i.!H17 1431 !l!l!l 11117 31,087.057 11»2 533 HllS:- 27,!)37.0111 II.TO (ilil l!)l!l r>3.304,r»54 11101! 12S0 l!»2(l 4.-).r)!)2.1i!l4 1537 !K»fl ISISI 43.fiir>,473 1031 102.-, 11122 41.li!l!l.l4S 20011 1272 1U33 43,871,908 1834 ITOS 11)24 51,030,828 IS3.T ' lihSii IU.U3 r.4..121.031 IS3O 1001 These figures are illuminating, in so far as they serve to dispel a popular illusion that because fresh export ret-oids have been created production has been going ahead by leaps and bounds. What has actually occurred is that prices have advanced considerably and production very little. Indeed, per head of the population, it is virtually the same as it was in -1914. Of course, this does not necessarily spell stagnation,- for our secondary industries have prospered meantime, and have presumably absorbed a section (of the community that under other circumstances might have been engaged on the laud, thereby increasing our exports through the channel of primary production. And even at the worst the figures appear to show that the country has been able to find profitable occupation ™t only for the natural increase of the population, but also for the immigrants from overseas, whose numbers have advanced at a bigger ratio in recent years. At the same time there is the obvious lesson that with the continued progress of scientific knowledge the per capita volume of production should be greater than it is.