N.Z. ECONOMIC BULLETIN 400th Issue By Chamber

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28552, 3 April 1958, Page 6

N.Z. ECONOMIC BULLETIN 400th Issue By Chamber

When the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce issues its economic bulletin this month it will be the 400th issue of a pamphlet which has come to be accepted as a reliable guide to New Zealand economic trends. The issue will be written by the author of the first bulletin in 1925—Professor A. H. Tocker.

To mark the issue, the chamber held a 5 o’clock party last evening, and former chairmen of its economic committee and authors of the bulletins gathered to exchange reminiscences and to pay tribute to members who had begun the service. With a circulation of 2700 a month, the bulletin is regarded as a guide to current New Zealand economic events and has a big circulation overseas. One of the first chairmen of the committee (Mr W. Machin) recalled last evening that when he met the first governor of the Reserve Bank he was told by the new official that a high official of the Bank of England had said that he could not recommend anything greater than the bulletin of the chamber; and that had formed the new official's shipboard reading on the way to New Zealand.

Mr J. Roy Smith paid a tribute to the close association that had existed betwen the chamber and Canterbury University College, which has supplied, the bulletins’ authors since Professor J. B. Condliffe and Professor Tocker began the series. Through the bulletins, and through the association with the university, businessmen had gained wide and important knowledge, he said. Professor Tocker’s first bulletin was on changes in New Zealand exchange rates. This month’s issue will not be widely different He will be writing on New Zealand's present problems in managing the trade balance.