“LACK OF INITIATIVE”

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 121, 7 February 1923, Page 9

“LACK OF INITIATIVE”

TRADE WITH SAMOA NEW ZEALAND MUST WAKE UP “Now Zealand merchants fail, through lack of initiative, whon they come into competition with Australian merchants for trade in merchandise with Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji.” The above statement was quoted from the “Samoa Times” by Mr. H. H. Oxley at the meeting: of the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. fie also quoted from an article in'"The Trade Promoter,” an influential commercial journal published in Sydney and Melbourne. Tlie article mentioned that a Wellington business man who had just returned from the Islands urged the need of greater enterprise on the part of New Zealand merchants to combat Australian rivals in the Island trade. “Faked and damaging reports about Island administration were published in Sydney,” said the Wellington business man, “but it has been found that damaging letters, appearing in a lot ' of Australian papers about Samoa had been invariably written by ‘duds’ who had been fired out of the markets, or who had not been allowed to enter the place because they were not considered desirables. These people are simply working off spleen against the administration. Unfortunately, the Australian traveller is in the habit of using such stuff to rub it into the New Zealand Government, and to hint how much better off the natives and everyone would be under |he Commonwealth Government. Our merchants must wake up and send live travellers round the Islands, not simply to call and Pass on with the boats, but wait between boats, as the more shrewd Australian does now, and gets the business.” Mr. Oxley, who made a comprehensive report on the prospects of trade with . Samoa on his return from the Islands recently, said that the shipping communication with Auckland was superior to that going from Sydney, but there was difficulty in arranging for the Island boat to come on to WelIngton after calling at Auckland. He stressed the attitude of Australian merchants, which was, he said, to encourage Samoa to trade with the Commonwealth, rather than the Dominion. New Zealand would have to wake up. or see her share of the trade go to her more enterprising neighbour. Tlie matter was referred to the subcommittee on Island trade.