TRADE WITH INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 43, 20 February 1929, Page 16

TRADE WITH INDIA.

POSSIBILITY OF MARKETS. N.Z. PRODUCE WANTED. '"We should strive to send a larger percentage of our produce to India," said Mr. W. McArthur, chairman of New Zealand Redwood Forests, Ltd., and managing director of the Selwyn Timber Company, who returned from a twelve months' business visit to India by the Ulimaroa from Sydney yesterday. Mr. McArthur was accompanied by his wife.

He pointed out that during the past ten years, New Zealand and Australia had imported from India goods to the value of £30,000,000 more than India had taken from them. He considered that Tndia offered a wonderful market for New Zealand produce. Export to India, however, was impossible under existing conditions. Refrigerated ships and certainty of refrigerating space at the ports of India were required before the development of trade could be entertained. However, from information he gathered, Mr. McArthur said that India was willing to absorb as much butter, cheese, and frozen meat as it was possible for the Dominion to send.

Mr. McArthur found the cotton industry, on which the prosperity of Bombay largely depended, to be practically dead. Workers in the mills had been on strike for a considerable time, and this accounted in a large measure for the recent riots. The strike was recognised as the work of Bolsheviks. When Mr. McArthur left Bombay, however, matters were improving, and a few of the mills were working. There was a feeling that the trouble would smooth itself over, he said. i