The Press Saturday, june 2, 1917 Imports and Consumption.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15917, 2 June 1917, Page 8

The Press Saturday, june 2, 1917 Imports and Consumption.

One. of tho papers has been quoting some figures, from an unofficial but generally source, relating to the imports into this country, and has been drawing from them tho condition that "New Zealanders havo put "no control on their capacity to spend " and . consume." This is porfectly true, but for some reason or other the rest of its article was devoted to such an indictment of the importation of motor-cars as might suggest to people whef do not know tho facts ; that if only tho motorcars could bo kept out the import situation would bo all right. Nothing, it. is represented, is so iirgent as tho motor-car question; nothing else, at any. rate, is particularised in the comments referred to. The import figures have always been rather in the way of the theorists "who quote the rise in tho export returns and brand it as amounting to so many "golden sovereigns" (as Mr Soddon used to put it) which havo been stored away by a group of miserly •producers. But wo hardly think the obstacle can bo cleared by turning a magnifying glass upon the motor-car importations, and ignoring all tho other things. Now, it is worth while considering how far tho of motorcar, importations can be accepted as the real test of the Quantity and Quality

of tlie nation's extravagance, and this ■wo can do ■while feeling that there should bo economy in motorcars as in everything else. The Government Statistician's figures in tho " Monthly Abstract" for April give details of tlic imports for the first quarter of the current year. The total imports amounted to £6.033,079, and the motorcars accountcd for only £167,660. That is to say. tho motor-cars represented less than 3 por cent, of tho total. It is surely p. little absurd to suggest that the 3 per cent, is more important and even bigger than tho 97 per cent. If no mrAnr-car importations at all .had taken place tho figures that would be left would serve just as well as tlio actual totals for a lecture upon th© statistical proof that "Xew Zealandcrs " hav© placed no control on their capacity to spend and consume." Let us look as some of tho other imports for the samo quarter: Apparel. £375,249; boots and leather, £162,71-1; hats, caps, hosiery and millinery, £136,405; spirits, £124,217; sugar and tea, £287,307; tobacco, £137,814; textile piece-goods, £739.457. Why, motorcars como almost nowhere. It is clearly not the idle millionaires on the farms who aro revealed by tho trade returns as the spenders and consumers, but the poople as a whole, amongst whom the piece-goods, the boots, tho hosiery, the sugar and tea arc distributed. Tho statistics do not tell us, but W© assume with confidence, that tho vast reek of tobacco smoke and tho piles of empty bottles, aro not the work of a small class of millionaires who, having nothing to do but watch their sheep fatten and their crops spring up, have 24 hours a day in which to smoke and drink. Of course, everybody daily, and all day,' sees for himself where the spending is done. Everyone is spending, because everyone is keeping close to tho pre-war scale of consumption, and thero aro not wanting peopl© who multiply opportunities to impress upon tho public the wickedness of exnecting thorn to put up with any inconvenience whatever. They must not pay a penny to tho Treasury towards the cost of the war; they must agitate for th© removal of the "iniquitous" war primage duty of three-farthings per hoad per week; they must regard as simply brutal, and even Teutonic, tlx© suggestion that they should slightly reduce their consumption. These aro samples of the advice actually given on three different occasions to the local public. Tho advico may hav© been given sincerely, just as the motor-cars may have been sincerely quoted as the root of the trouble. In that case, wo simply cannot understand the frame of mind from which such advice can . come.