SAVING OF HARD CURRENCY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25738, 25 February 1949, Page 5

SAVING OF HARD CURRENCY

COMMENT BY ENGLISH VISITOR “I see fewer dollar goods here than in any place I have visited, an indication that New Zealand has a realisation of the need to conserve hard currency,” said Mr P. Donald, who was for 25 years chairman of the exports and imports section of the London Chamber of Commerce, yesterday. Mr Donald is on a tour to investigate world economic conditions. In the last three years he has visited 37 of the 43 colonies and every one of the Dominions. Apart from one point. New Zealand was nearer the Spartan conditions of Great Britain than any country he had visited, Mr Donald said. The exception was in the greater variety of food available. “That «s natural—you produce it and are entitled to it.” he said. Mr Donald said that he was studying the effect of present regulations and restrictions on the future of trade, particularly as they affected Britain. The most dangerous condition he had noted was the desire in each country to sell its goods without buying goods in return. Each country was attempting to force another into an unpayable debt. Each country, he said, should concentrate on what was economic. New Zealand was at the moment taking back produce of equal value to its exports, but if a country sold more it must be prepared to buy more. He had made a sutdy of the commercial side of forestry, Mr Donald said. Great Britain was buying £70,000,000 worth of hard currency timber. - He felt that a good part of that timber could have come from the Empire, but forest development would first have to take place. There was plenty of scope for it.