EMPIRE MARKETS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 14, 11 October 1927, Page 9

EMPIRE MARKETS

PRODUCTION MORE WORTH THAN TRADE

PROBLEM OF STANDARDS OF LIVING

The eleventh annual 'general meeting of the British Empire Producers’ Organisation was held in London recently. The chairman of the council, Mr. B. 11. Morgan, presided. In the course of his address, Mr. Morgan said that the outstanding lact of the year had been the growth of an Empire consciousness—the realisation by the Mother Country of the absolute necessity, tor its iuture industrial existence, to cultivate Empire markets and to encourage and safeguard Empire supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials; and in the Overseas Empire itself the conviction was stronger than ever that their prosperity was bound up with an increasing security of market in the Mother Country. This crystallisation of Empire interdependence was due mainly to two factors.—(l) “The increasing extent to which foreign nations have become self-supporting in their industrial requirements, and in their capacity to produce essential foodstuffs, the result beiii" that Great Britain can no longer rely on foreign markets for the expansion of her industries; and on the other hand the Dominions and Colonies, except for certain tropical products like rubber, can only find an outlet for the bulk of their goods in Great Britain.” (2) “The growth of Imperial consciousness, undoubtedly duo to the work\of the Empire Marketing Board, so ably conducted by the Secretary of State for the Dominions and Colonies, Mr. Amery, and to the propaganda carried out by Empire associations.” One of the main services of encouragement to the Empire movement in Britain, be said, was the frequent presence in England of prominent Overseas Empire Statesmen and Producers. Imperial Trading. "We continue to buy from European, Asiatic, and South American countries enormous quantities of goods that should be produced in the Empire by our own people," continued Mr. Morgan. Last year the United States sold to us £229,060,000 worth of goods, and bought from us under A‘48,000,000; while Germany sold to us .£72,700,000, and bought from us £26,300,000. Denmark, a formidable competitor with Empire producers in the Home market, sold to ns in the same vear .£48,000,000, and bought from us £8,000,000. How many additional Britishers could have been employed in the Empire, end how much more prosperous we should have been if the purchases we made from those foreign countries had been made in the Empire.” Mr. Morgan emphasised that production, not trade, was the basis of all prosperity. “To make two plants grow where one grow before —to convert into articles of current value raw materials, useless in their natural conditions—-these are the operations of industry which increases the wealth of a nation, and the great care of the nations of the Empire should be to see that ‘production’ in its various forms should always be made profitable. This should be the first and basic consideration of all economic policy. The shipper, banker, merchant, commission agent, should only be considered after the producer has been assured of a profitable return for hiS work and capital. And yet, what do we see? In the case of most food commodities sold in Great Britain to-day. the price received by the producer in the Dominion and colonies, as well as in the Mother Country, bears no relation whatever to the price paid by the consumer. It would be easy to give a list of examples where the producer obtains less than one-tenth of what the consumer pays. Here is a State of things that should receive the urgent attention of the Governments of the Empire. While recognising that the merchant and broker plays a necessary part in the work of distribution, production cannot thrive as it should when products are made the subject of wholesale speculation and manipulation by middlemen, who play no really useful part in the machinery of transport and distribution.” Standards of Living. 'Empire producers,” ho said, “are striving to maintain and improve tne standard of living ,of industrial workers. But their efforts are more often than not rendered futile by the policy.of the various Governments of the Empire in allowing the prices of their commodities to be depressed by goods made in countries with lower standards of living. Foodstuff's are produced in European countries where the wages of a man and his wife and family, working from sunrise to sunset, do not equal | the wages of one worker in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The maintenance of a standard of living that permits comfort, security, and reasonable leisure for every worker, is one of the main purposes of the British Commonwealth of Nations. We could do. a great deal by better organisation of industry and co-operative marketing, but there is no saving that can offset such vast differences in the payment for work done in Europe, Asia, and South .America. as compared with the Dominions. If we aro to develop the British estate, therefore, we must in some way ensure a profitable market for our own producers.”

Tt is reported that there is a considerable shortage of gopd yeanlings and heifers close to profit this season in Taranaki (states an exchange). One South Tnranaki stock firm is said to have already buying orders for nearly 13<)0 wenner Jersey heifers in February and March next, and a shortage of dairy cattle in Taranaki in the next year or so 1b predicted.