NATIONAL IDEAL

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 230, 24 June 1932, Page 12

NATIONAL IDEAL

Development of Industries SUPPLY & DEMAND Mr C. J. B. Norwood’s Hopes “The well-known law of supply and demand, in my opinion, is still the biggest factor in price fixation, and I would prefer a prosperous Europp to an enclosed market with Great Britain and her Dominions,” said Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, president of the Wellington Show Association, when speaking at the official opening of the exhibition yesterday afternoon. Mr. Norwood said that one of the principal objects of the Wellington Show Association was to foster the development of Dominion industries, primary and secondary, through a common ideal that either could serve its own interests by constructive co-opera-tion with the other. It was a poor national ideal that would see to make New Zealand ultimately an agricultural country, pure and simple, to serve other countries and live upon the measure of profit in return for its products, and, likewise, to suffer so full a measure of the hardships as were liable, due to political or other upheavals, in the country that formed New Zealand’s best customer. Necessity for I Co-operation. A survey of the world for the last fifty years, Mr. Norwood said, would show that'the agricultural countries had all been poor countries, and just to the extent that they had developed in recent years their secondary industries, so they had improved their own status. Vital and important as the products of the land were, no nation had ever attempted to gain commercial supremacy through this channel. The riiore selfcontained this country could be made the less 'it would be affected by outside influences. New Zealand had great natural resources but in the absence of much increased population it would never be economical to develop them. It was only by a sane policy of co-operation of the primary and secondary producers that the Dominion could progress to the mutual advantage of both sections and t'o the ultimate goal when New Zealand would be its own best customer.

To-day New Zealand had got to find markets overseas for more than 62 per cent, of its production. This fact would-continue to be a weakness and woiild always make New Zealand subject to a severe reaction with the ups and downs —political and otherwise—that were taking place within the country to which New Zealand must send its products. • “I am speaking of a national ideal and in doing so am mindful that there are many gaps to bridge and obstacles to overcome,” said Mr. Norwood. “But I do think that if our politicians are nation builders there should be a policy in which posterity is destined to figure, but candidly, I have not heard of one. The Lausanne Conference. “Very important conferences are now being held and much has been said concerning the Ottawa Conference, but I am‘convinced in my own mind that unless Great Britain can progress in her international markets she will not be able , to consume; the ever-in-creasing production of her Dominions; for this reason I trust the Lausanne Conference will have a happy ending to the benefit of mankind the world over. “I am satisfied that New Zealand is waiting to be prosperous just aS' soon as it can receive from its relatively huge exports a little more than the cost of production. With a revival of trade and re-exports in Britain, adjustments in. price levels • will come quickly. Mr. Norwood congratulated the stallholders upon their displays, and said that they deserved credit for what they had done in these times when most were suffering a loss in business. The Exhibition was a contribution toward the crushing of the pessimistic spirit which was too common in New Zealand.