COLONIAL MARKETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 193, 17 August 1939, Page 11

COLONIAL MARKETS.

Year's Operations Of Empire

Board.

PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN.

(Received 9.30 a.m.) RUGBY, August 16. The first report of the Colonial Empire Marketing Board, set up in 1937 by Lord Harlech, then Secretary for the Colonies, to help' "colonial territories to develop their own resources of wealth so as to sell more goods and sell those goods to better advantage," states that the board began operations in March, 1938, and its work during the first year can be divided into two main sections— the first was to put into the mind of the general public at Home a far clearer picture of Britain's possessions overseas, and the second, to investigate and improve ways in which the leading colonial products are brought to the market. f

Among the means employed by the board to create interest in the resources of the Colonial Empire are a short, brightly written book on the history and development of colonies which will appear shortly, and films showing how the colonies are administered and their populations cared for.

The Empire Exhibition at Glasgow and the New York World Fair have provided other opportunities which the board has seized to bring Britain's distant possessions before millions of eyes. Plans are being made to ensure that at similar future exhibitions, colonies and their resources shall even more attractively be presented.

The board's secretariat has handled inquiries relating to more than 50 different colonial products, ranging alphabetically from agaragar to wool. Detailed marketing investigations hay© followed in cases of arrowroot, fresh limes, flax and passion fruit juice.