EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 17

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

LOAD ON BRITISH INDUSTRY

IMPORT RESTRICTIONS "XO HELP." (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON"", this day. "British trade needs all the help possible to-day. Our efforts for the defence of the Empire are placing an almost unbearable load on industry and it is certainly no help when Xew Zealand shuts out our products. Xew Zealand can never be self-supporting as far as defence is concerned, and the ones who are paying for her defence— we. in the United Kingdom-—are entitled to ask for some help in the wav of trade." This is an extract from one of a number of letters received in Wellington this week by business houses from British firms, who comment on the second period import restriction*. Another letter contains the following:— "We wonder if the people in Xew Zealand realise that the British Xavy is almost their sole protection against possible invasion. It docs not help the British industrialist, who. a* a large taxpayer, chiefly maintains this Xavy. to shut his goods- out of Xew Zealand. "European markets are being closed to British trade, and if a Dominion like Xew Zealand follows this example it makes things very difficult for us, and we may have to say: 'Well, Xew Zea land, you have shut out our goods and cut down our trade, we are very sorry but you cannot expect or ask us at the some time to pay for your protection.'*'