The Press Friday, May 2, 1930. New Zealand Trade.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19917, 2 May 1930, Page 14

The Press Friday, May 2, 1930. New Zealand Trade.

The Canterbury Manufacturers' Association at its meeting on Wednesday night, in the course of its long reply to the Chamber of Commerce Economic Bulletin on New.Zealand's factory production, seriously suggested that the Dominion should follow the example of Australia and place prohibitive restrictions on the admission of certain classes of imports. It did not seem to. be thoroughly understood by the meeting that the drastic action taken by Australia was forced on it by circumstances which do not exist in New Zealand. In the first place Australia, in common i with New Zealand and most other countries in the world at the present . time, is suffering from a general de- | pression and falling prices, but in addi- | tion the economic condition of the country has been seriously affected by 1 several years of drought. Had these j been the only troubles Australia could jhave surmounted them without the adoption of violent remedies, but unfortunately for the Commonwealth they led to others which created a position of unprecedented diffleulty. For Several years past Australia has been enjoying the benefits of a vast excess of imports for which the country' was not in a position to pay, and payment was actually effected by the raising of loans for the purpose. This process continued as long as the lenders held the belief that the growing resources of the country justified the loans, but When wool values fell and wheat and coal exports were reduced, the lenders began to get uneasy and to examinemore closely the state of public finances in the Commonwealth. It then became clear to them that Australia had been living much beyond its income and largely on borrowed money, and that national bankruptcy would result if the process were not arrested. Moreover, money itself became scarce in London and in New York, and there was a lessened ability to provide overseas loans even had there been no lessened F desire. The, consequence was that Australia found herself cut off from the loan supplies on which she depended to make good the difference between the value of her export productiveness and the imports she desired from overseas countries. That difference Was calculated to represent* an annual sum of between forty and fifty millions sterling, and the country was forced to accommodate itself to a less expensive manner of living resulting from • the withdrawal of unearned support. New Zealand is*in no such plight. This Dominion has been in the habit of paying for what it wants by the fruits of its own production, and has not resorted to the money-lender to Cnablo it to live beyond its means. It i 3 true that the country is affected, with others, by; the present low price-level of exportable goods, and is justified in exercising a prudent" economy t6 meet the situation, but there is no reason whatever why New Zealand should cut off supplies for which she can afford to ■pity. It was even suggested by sorrie of the speaker* at the meeting-that it would he a good thing for New Zealand if instead of buying goods abroad it kept -the money in the country. The extraordinary idea that when we buy godds'we "send money out of the "country" has been so often refuted that it cannot be necessary to discuss it again; but what the speakers were trying to say was that the people of NeW Zealand should deprive themselves of tnaity u&eful Commodities for which they can afford to .pay and which they cannot procure at home. It is bad enough /to have to do that 4 when circttmjittittces \bmpelit, as they have in Australia, but as an act of penance, as it would be in New Zealand,' it would be merely ridiculous.