Close Bonds With Canterbury

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 13

Close Bonds With Canterbury

(A message from

Mr E.J. PARRY.

, president of the

Canterburg Chamber of Commerce.)

The 180th anniversary of Australia Day marks another year in which closer bonds have been forged between Australian interests and the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, and it is with pleasure and pride that we extend our congratulations and good wishes to the Commonwealth.

The last few years have recorded a rapid growth in the chamber’s interest in Australian affairs, which no doubt can be attributed in some measure to the advent of the Australian Trade Office in Christchurch and the calbre of its commissioners.

It is some two and a half years ago that the chamber was inspired, with other organisations, to send a party of its members to visit the Sydney Trade Fair, and this visit stimulated considerable discussion and thinking about the common interests of our two countries.

Early last year it was the pleasure of the chamber to entertain Mr and Mrs Harold Holt during their visit to Christchurch, and their charm and friendliness won the affection of all present. Mr Holt’s tragic death recently was felt as a personal loss to many in New Zealand. Later last year we were given the wonderful opportunity of hearing Sir Robert Menzies address some 250 of our members at a luncheon during his all too brief visit to Christchurch. The visit of these two Australian leaders gave New Zealand an opportunity to appreciate at first hand the desire of Australia to have the closest of relationships with New Zealand and its development in the Pacific area. Trade As an organisation representing the commercial section of the community, it has been the chamber’s responsibility to watch closely trade developments between our two countries. Both countries have in the past had an economic background based on agricultural interests and the well-being of our peoples has

been closely allied to world prices for the output of our farmlands. In the last decade Australia has been able to rapidly change the basis of her economy, assisted by the unearthing of vast resources of minerals and the discoveries of oil and gas. Assisted immigration has provided the manpower to support this growth and change, so that Australia now is much less dependent on the sale overseas of its wool clip but is rapidly becoming a large supplier of the world’s requirements of minerals. The same diversification has not been possible in New Zealand and while some progress has been and is continuing to be made in our manufacturing industries, our chief expansion has been in our primary products and industries associated with them. The Free Trade Agreement which was entered into three years ago to liberalise terms of access to each others markets has had too little time to be of real benefit to either country, but at this stage it would appear to have been of greater advantage to Australia than New Zealand. However, devaluation could have a very marked effect in the near future. Recent reports show that the trade imbalance between our two countries has fallen. We are sorry that this has been due to a decline in Australian imports rather than an increase in New Zealand’s exports to Australia. The view of the chamber is that both countries must establish the closest of relationship, economically, politically and socially to enable them to establish and maintain a community necessary to the development of the Pacific, the area in which the destiny of our countries lies.