New Zealand’s Foreign Trade

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 65, 10 December 1930, Page 13

New Zealand’s Foreign Trade

Sir, —The country that gives present attention to building up an efficient foreign trade organisation is going to command a prosperous future. The people of that time will reflect with gratefulness on the wisdom and foresight of those who made such prosperity possible. To-day is the day of opportunity. It is because I wish my homeland to have a large share in this prosperity I continually urge our country’s rulers to give this matter a much larger share of their attention. New Zealand should now have a foreign export trade ten times as great as that recorded last year. She can only get it by setting up and developing a business-like organisation to go out after it. . Every pound un to a million that New Zealand puts into a proper organisation to expand her foreign trade during the next twelve months or so will come back to her tenfold within ten years. I am convinced of this after visiting most of the countries in all the continents of the world, and inquiring closely into their trade matters. What struck me most, almost everywhere, was the feebleness of any exporting country’s efforts to get the maximum of business, and the almost total lack of cohesive effort to get even a fair share out of all markets. Britain has a large number of trade commissioners out, and U.S.A, and Canada are also represented in many fields. While-there are.some really capable men out representing these countries, and France-and Germany have a few keen business-getters in some fields, I am not impressed by the majority. of ■ trade commissioners I have met. To me it seems that some of the first essentials required in a trade commissioner should be a record of successful field salesmanship in some business where approach, sales talk, and clinching orders combined to be an art. The trade commissioner should, be able to talk, read and write the language of the people he. is sent to. He should be fully posted in the history and traditions, the manners and customs, likes and dislikes, and general peculiarities of the people he is sent .to. He should be well informed on their manufacturing and trading enterprises, thfir. banking and financial systems, and on. their national aspirations. While the social amenities of the country should' not. be ignored, a trade commissioner can waste a lot of useful time, if not careful, on club and organisation banquets, pink teas. . harbour and river excursions, and holidaying at nice resorts arid homes. I would have a trade department inspector drop in on every trade commissioner at irregular intervals to consult with him about his local problems.. and ascertain for his department just what change, if any, might bring better results in that field. A trade commissioner should be able to speak interestingly anywhere, and know how to get the maximum of help from the Press of the country he is sent to. He should have the knack of getting his gleaned information into crisp, short reports that business men can understand withdut haying to' wade through lengthy dissertations that smack of the departmental blue-book style. In choosing the right man to send to a’ country. New Zealand is in a position to do this which I think would work well—send a Chinese to China, an Indian to India, a German to Germany, a Frenchman to France, a Scot to Scotland, an Irishman to Ireland, and so on. There are native-born New Zealanders of these races. Train them, and send them to the lands of their parents. New Zealand owes it to her producers and manufacturers that a well-organised and properly-equip-pe.l foreign trade service be immediately set in motion to get her surplus products into the various world’s markets awaiting them. If our Dominion is content to shelve this matter from year to year in the hope that some Imperial Economic Conference in London or elsewhere will do something as nearly worth while as what I here suggest, she may have a long, weary wait. Let us New Zealanders get up and get out after the business ourselves. —I am. etc., GEORGE J. BRUCE. Vancouver, 8.C., -Canada, Nov. 11.