BRITAIN AND QUOTA

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 26, 31 January 1934, Page 10

BRITAIN AND QUOTA

PUBLIC OPINION.

AWAKENING FACTOR

EARL BEATTY AND N.Z. SHIPPING. (From a Special Correspondent.) LONDON, December 20. While New Zealand has probably been most deeply perturbed by the proposal of the British Government that the Dominion should voluntarily concur in the limitation of cheese, exports, the average Briton has remained either in complete ignorance that such a proposal has been put forward or else has regarded it as something vaguely con-

nected with the question of milk reorganisation', which docs not concern him until the matter of the price of milk for raw consumption is involved.

During the past few days, however, one or two of the more enlightened newspapers, notably the '■.Manchester Guardian," have devoted considerable space to explaining the reasons for the seemingly recalcitrant attitude taken up by the New Zealand farmers and the probable reaction of a quota upon the British public. The interest thus created has been stimulated since the return of Mr. T. Baxter (chairman of the Milk Marketing Scheme) from his fruitless visit to New Zealand. At a Royal Empire Society luncheon, Mr. Baxter made a speech in which he argued that New Zealand is the real fly in the ointment of the British marketing scheme, and.that the Dairy Produce Board is more to blame than either the Government or the individual producers for the attitude of uncompromising resistance so far adopted by the Dominion.

Start With The Foreigner. It was as well, in the circumstances, that Sir Archibald Weigall, chairman of the Royal Empire Society (who will doubtless be remembered in New Zealand as a former Governor of South Australia) drew attention from the chair to the fact that, during the first 10 months of this year, Britain's dairy imports from foreign sources amounted to 292.000 tons against 330.000 tons from Empire sources. He suggested that, while so large a proportion came from the foreigner there was scope for reconsidering the matter from the particular angle.

The London agency of the Xew Zealand Dairy Produce Board was quick to reply to Mr. Baxter's statement, and in a Press communique issued the same day contendid that the restriction of trade within Mie Empire was a direct negation of the chief object to the Ottawa agreements, namely, the encouragement of inter-Empire trade vis-a-vis the rest of the world. It was further pointed out that Xew Zealand's buying power was at stake and that the board failed to see how the artificial restriction of the Dominion's output could raise her power to buy British goods.

Both Mr. Baxter's statement and the New Zealand Board's reply have been well reported, and British opinion is waking up to the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture's policy may have grave repercussions.

U.S.A. Butter Surplus. Piquancy i* lent to the situation by an announcement that the U.S.A. lias addressed to the Foreign Office an inquiry as to what measure of reciprocity can be expected from Great Britain in respect of tho admission of whisky, either immediately or after January 31, when Congress takes control of imports. It is hinted that reciprocity should take the form of encouragement of American agriculture, particularly dairy products! The U.S.A. is, by the" way, reputed to have in store about 70,000 tons of butter above normal. On the face of it. the suggestion that Britain should grant any preferential admittance to U.S.A. butter while calling for a restriction of output from her own Dominions seems somewhat fantastic. It will be interesting to hear what the Ministry of Agriculture has to say on the subject of this feeler to the Foreign Office.

Improvement in the heavy trades has occasioned the liveliest satisfaction here, and official figures of employment just issued show that there are 520,000 fewer insured unemployed itoiv than a year ago. Of this decrease, nearly 20,000 is accounted for 'by "the improvement ii) the shipbuilding trade, and the fact that eight new refrigerated ships are being built for the New Zealand-United Kingdom trade has come in for a good deal of favourable comment.

Earl Beatty and New Zealand Trade. Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, who takes a keen interest in the welfare of the British Mercantile Marine, in a letter to the Press tho other day, called attention to this healthy development. He pointed the moral that the shipping industry itself appeared to have substantial confidence in the future of trade between New Zealand and the Homeland notwithstanding our tendency to make agreements with' foreign competitors of the Dominion. "In my view," he added, "it is imperative that the Empire trade routes should be served by Empire ships since these routes are the main lines of our food, supply in time of war. . . . So long as we are drawing from foreign countries a very large proportion of those essential supplies, we should each and all of us regard it as a personal duty, subject to the prior claims of Home products, to buy those articles of Empire production which.-as exemplified by New Zealand dairy and other products, are helping to keep the Red Ensign flying on our trade routes." The question of the value to the United Kingdom of invisible exports represented by shipping is one that, cannot be kept too prominently before the British public. It is of considerable importance at this juncture that the public here should be kept well-advised of all important Government and private, orders from New Zealand of British <»oods so that there may be a wider realisation of the fact that the Dominion's diminished purchases of Home manufactures reflects a depicted purse rather than a lessening of good will. Converting the North.

Notwithstanding the momentarily unfavourable atmosphere for Empire dairy produce, the New Zealand Board's representatives, in this country are doing their utmost to maintain and extend the popularity of New Zealand butter and cheese. A renewed attack has been launched upon Danish strongholds in the Midlands and the North, and excellent results, have already been achieved in Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Leeds, Huddersfield and Halifax. The board's officials are meeting with a good deal of sympathetic co-operation on the part of civic authorities, and great stress has been laid in these areas upon the importance of the New Zealand market to lecal exporting trades.