"A DUMPING GROUND."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 8

"A DUMPING GROUND."

GOODS FROM RUSSIA. GREAT BRITAIN'S POSITION. WAGES FALLING FAST. With England a sort of a dumping ground for all sorts of commodities from Russia, the cost of production of British goods would have to come down if they were going to-be sold at all, said Mr. Maurice Smith, who returned to New Zealand by the Niagara thi<s morning! As a first step to lowering production costs wages were coming down in all directions, he said. Wages in the Po<st and Telegraph Department in England had been cut more than 10 per cent and this example was being followed almost generally in industry and farming. It was the accepted thing that wages should' be lowered and the people were prepared to face that contingency. Mr. Smith said he thought this means of decreasing the cost of production was the more necessary because Britain was not prepared to s"ee protection in force just at present. The Labour party had stated that protection meant a dear breakfast table and at all costs the general public, he said, wanted the price of foodstuffs kept low.

Russian goods were being , imported into Britain so cheaply that the average business man in Britain would rather sell foreign goods than British-made because it was possible to sell the former at a profit where- it was scarcely possible to quit the latter at all. It was difficult to go into a shop and be sure that the commodity one bought was not Russian. Bricks, timber, butter and wheat were only a few of the products being simply poured into the country. Mi-. Smith said that New Zealand butter and cheese had a good name in England. • The price of the best butter was 1/2 to ]/4 per lb retail, and that of cheese, Bd. Canterbury lamb was highly spoken of and the frozen products from New Zealand, which was eight mouths old, obtained a' higher price than the fresh local lamb of only five months. Mr. Smith has been away from New Zealand for just over a year. During his stay in England he toured the country extensively bv car. >'