THE FALL IN IMPORTS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13646, 1 February 1910, Page 6

THE FALL IN IMPORTS.

The annual report of the President of tho Industrial Association contains on allusion to the "gratifying falling oft" in the value of the imports for last year, the reduction being from £17,247,162 in 1308 to £14,813,644, while the exports increased in the same period from £16,075,252 to £19,635,936. " The result of decreased importing '• and increased export," it is said t "means prosperity," and a hope is expressed that our import* "will con- " tinue to decrease in proportion to " our exports." "We are afraid that the Association's satisfaction with the reduction in imports is not quite warranted by facts. If it meant that the amount —nearly two and a half millions—which the Dominion did net

spend on imported goods last year, as compared with the previous year, was expended in the purchase of local manufactures, the drop would be, indeed, a subject for congratulation. But the President gave no figures to justify this conclusion, and we question very much if it was the case. The lessened demand for impoits was, we have no doubt, very largely due to the clump iv wool ard meat and the general financial stringency, which restricted expenditure and compelled economy. It was an index of the depression which is now passing away, and though it showed that the public were doing the right tiling by practising retrenchment, tho fact that they found it necessary to do so hajdly seems a subject for rejoicing. As for the hope that "our imports will " continue to decrease in proportion to " our exports," we imagine that a

Urge influx of capital, which would swell our imports very materially, w<hiM be eTtremelv welcome to ;he whole Dominion, including; the merr.bors of the Industrial Association. It is always difficult to draw conclusions as to a country's prosperity from the rise and fall of imports and export*! for f.o many varying circumstances h*vo to be taken into consideration.; but what is known of the course of trade in >ew Zealand last year does not justify any paeans being raised over the comparative fall in imports.