SELF-HELP.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 85, 11 April 1929, Page 9

SELF-HELP.

THE EMPIRE TRADE.

Fostering Relations Between

Dominions.

POSITION IN CANADA. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) ißpreived 10.3 A a.m.l VANCOUVER, April 10. Canadians are eager to buy Australian goods of quality, and to give them preference as a matter of Empire sentiment. Vancouver importers and merchants are ready and willing to go as far as they can in encouraging a market for Australian roods, but, and the "but" was made very plain, Australian manufacturers, producers and shippers must realise that it is up to themselves to sell their goods on the Canadian market.

They must learn the needs and requirements as to quality and package, the Canadian methods of trade, and. above all, they must at least assist in the advertising here of their own wares.

All this is on the Canadian side of an informal conference between Australian delegates to the Educational Conference and leading members of the Vancouver Board of Trade.

On their side, the Australians contended thai, the necessity for better acquaintance with the Canadian market was already being recognised, and they instanced the appointment of an Australian Trade Commissioner, but were reminded that the Commissioner cannot possibly do the work that should be done by direct contact by the firms seeking a market here.

"Any day in any week there are fo ty American travellers In Vancouver industriously showing goods and taking orders, and no Trade Commissioner could get. in five years, the information that representatives of the American houses have at their finger tips," said Mr. H. R. MacMillan. a leading timber exporter. He urged that heads of Australian houses should come to Canada to look over the field and learn the needs and idiosyncracies of the buying public.

They should decide themselves what opportunities offered and then act on first-hand information obtained. There should be an intensive educational campaign telling Canada of the Australian goods available.

Discussion centred for a time on the market for Australian wines. A suggestion from an Australian delegate that price preference over other imported wines might readily result in Australia granting a preference to Canadian timber and other products was assented to by all delegates.

Mr. J. W. Fordham-Tohnson, managing director of the British Columbia Sugar Refinery Company, told of the inability to buy Australian sugar when he believed he might guarantee a better price than in the British market. He had been nnable to understand his failure.

Mr. D. H. Eos?, Canadian Trade Commissioner for Australia, also suggested that the British Columbian and other Canadian liquor control boards might well lessen their profit on Australian wines. This might encourage Australian authorities to give further preference to Canadian timber.