CANADA AND NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21324, 17 November 1934, Page 22

CANADA AND NEW ZEALAND

UNFAIR TRADE BALANCE MR DAVID JONES TALKS .PLAINLY Canada, in the last fiscal year, sold a bill of goods to New Zealand amounting to about 4,500,000 dollars. In the bill were such commodities as newsprint and other paper, canned salmon, motor-cars, and quite a wide variety of manufactured products. In return, Canada bought from New Zealand 2,575,000 dollars worth of goods, wool being the largest item in the list. The trade between the two Dominions has fallen off sadly'in the last four or five years and there appears to be a likelihood, unless something is done about it, that it may fall off still more (says the -Vancouver Daily Province"). , On the Niagara, which arrived on October 5, was Mr David Jones, a former member of the Coates cabinet, and at present chairman of the Meat Producers' Board of Wellington. Mr Jones is on his way to England to attend a conference on trade matters. In passing through Victoria and Vancouver he made no secret of New Zealand's dissatisfaction with the condition of her trade with Canada. "New Zealand is getting tired of the way Canada is carrying on," said Mr Jones, "and unless the spirit of the Ottawa agreements is more liberally interpreted in this country, it will not be long before we will be compelled to adopt measures which will be more to our advantage." Canada's Closed Butter Market The thing that hurts New Zealand most, Mr Jones intimated, is the attitude of Canada to New Zealand's principal export, butter. Canada formerly bought quite heavily of New Zealand butter, but as the following figures of imports for recent fiscal years show, she has been buying sparingly of late: 1929, 24,730,851 pounds; 1930,39,744,816 pounds; 1931, 13,794,880 pounds; 1932, 72,984 pounds; 1933, 806,947 pounds; 1934, 737,601 pounds. Under the Ottawa agreements there is a tariff of 5 cents a pound against New Zealand butter. It is not this, however, that worries the New Zealand exporter so much as the fact that he can't even tell, when he sends off a consignment of butter to Canada, when it will be admitted or whether it will be admitted at all. The government has various powers under our rather flexible tariff and the charge is that it uses them to discourage the entry of the New Zealand product. The result is that the Canadian market is to all intents and purposes 95 per cent, closed against New Zealand butter. Meanwhile, of course, Canada wishes to continue to receive favours in New Zealand. What Will Canada Do? But now another factor comes into the situation—two factors indeed. One is Great Britain; the other is Soviet Russia. Great Britain, in the process of becoming self-sufiicient, according to the Elliot plan, is planning to reduce the quotas of foodstuffs which Empire and foreign countries may send her. New Zealand, which is almost entirely a producer of foodstuffs, will suffer severely if her quota in her principal market is much reduced. She feels that she may have to bargain to retain her quota. And if she bargains, she may find it necessary to throw to the British manufacturer a good portion of the business that now goes to Canada. The Canadian market is not of much value to us anyway, say those who favour the change. Why worry about it? Soviet Russia, too, has been making advances to New Zealand. It could buy heavily of New Zealand's meats, which Canada will not buy, and offers in return lumber and oil. Some day it may have paper. So there the situation stands. What can Canada do about it? Undoubtedly the New Zealand trade is worth preserving. But it can be preserved only at a price. The New Zealanders do not suggest tariff changes which would mean the sacrifice of the Canadian dairying industry. But they believe there are seasons of the year when, without doing any serious damage to Canadian producers, New Zealand butter can be admitted to the Canadian market in fairly large volume. They would prefer even a higher tariff that remains stable to the existing uncertain situation. AMERICAN FARM POLICY MONEY FOR NOTHING '' The following humorous letter addressed to the editor recently appeared in the columns of the "Commercial and Financial Chronicle," Kew York. The writer's gibe is directed to the pig restriction scheme of the United States Agricultural Adjustment Administration: — "Dear Sir,—A friend of mine in New England has a neighbour who has received a Government cheque for 1000 dollars this year for not raising hogs. So my friend now wants to go into the business himself, he not being very prosperous just now; he says, in fact, that the idea of not raising hogs appeals to him very strongly. "Of course, he will need a hired man, and that is where I come in. I write to you as to your opinion of the best kind of a farm not to raise hogs on, the best strain of "hogs not to raise, and now best to keep an inventory of hogs you are not raising. Also, do you think capital could be raised by issuance of a non-hog-raising gold bond? "The friend who got the thousand dollars got it for not raising 500 hogs. Now, we figure we might easily not raise 1500 or 2000 hogs, so you see the possible profits are only limited by the number of hogs we do not raise. "The other fellow had been raising hogs for 40 years and never made more than 400 dollars in any one year. Kind of pathetic, isn't it, to think how he wasted his life raising' hogs when he could have made so much more not raising them! "I will thank you for any advice you may offer. "Very truly yours, "HAROLD TRUEMAN."