BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR
WORLD TRADE SPEED-UP A HEALTHY MOVEMENT (By Lord Strathspey.) The British Industries Bair, which is to be held again in London and Birmingham from February IS to March 1, has been called “Britain's Shop Window,” and last year I named it “The Empire’s Market Place.” But a new name has to be found for it now. It has acquired a new dignity and importance. The fair is not just a series of stalls where casual buyers pick up a bargain or two. It is the common meeting ground of the Empire's manufacturers and producers and the world’s buyers. New British industries are built up there; markets are found for Empire products for which hitherto there lias been no demand ; British firms which have no salesmen in the Dominions and colonies, and firms in the Dominions and colonies which have no permanent buyers in England, are brought into touch for the first time; foreigners who flock to the fair come into direct contact with the representatives of the Empire producers; and the final result is a fillip to world trade that may eventually mean the rewriting of the text-books on commercial geography. . There is no doubt about the fair’s usefulness to the Dominions and colonies. That is proved by the increasing use that has been made of the Empire Marketing Board’s section. At the last fair, South Africa w*as a newcomer. At the next fair Canada is to show her produce for the'first time, and so the section continues to grow. Next February the exhibitors under the auspices of the Empire Marketing Board will include the Home Country and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, the Eastern African Dopendencies, the Irish Free State. Sotith--Rhodesia, British Guiana, Cyprus, the Gold Coast, Malay States, the West Indies, Mauritius and Sierra Leone. The Canadian Government, in addition to its display of produce and raw materials, has taken a hall of 10,000 square feet lor the use of its manufacturers. This will be -an exhibition in itself and Canada’s greatest effort in this direction since the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. The fair as a whole, taking London and Birmingham together, has doubled its size in three years, and the forthcoming fair is to be the largest and most representative ever held. In London will be shown the Intost developments in the chemical industry, new textiles and clothes, foodstuffs,. the best pottery and glassware that the country can produce, leather and leather goods that are unbeaten for quality, scientific, photographic and wireless equipment, stationery and ofiice equipment, new designs in jewellery, sports goods—acknowledged to be the best in the world —and toys that beat the German productions. In Birmingham there will be the products of the heavier industries —machine tools, quarry and mine equipment, electrical installations for factory , and home, gas and oil engines, construction materials. hardware, and metal and hemp goods. The constantly increasing size and importance of the exhibits attract an increasing number of buyers each year. The increasing number of buyers, in turn, makes' it more and more worth while exhibiting. It is the opposite of a vicious circle—a healthy trade movement that is speeded up each year by its own momentum—with a helpful push, of course, by the organisers. ... Thus the more buyers that come to the fair from the Dominions and colonies, the greater will be the general progress of the fair and the better the business done by the Empire producers. The buyer who comes from a country overseas will not onlv be able to see in a fortnight all the most saleable goods that. Britain and other parts of the Empire can offer; he will know that he is helping the marketing of the produce of his own country. To visit England next February means good business and good patriotism combined, and from my own knowledge of them, I can say that such an opportunity is. not one that will be lightly passed over by the leading business men overseas.
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Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 73, 19 December 1928, Page 12
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668BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 73, 19 December 1928, Page 12
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