THE DAIRY CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 75, 21 December 1934, Page 13

THE DAIRY CRISIS

Britain Sympathetic to New; Zealand

DOMINION PRODUCE

M.P.’s Make Appeal For Special Treatment

(From a Correspondent.)

London, November 14.

The report of the New Zealand Royal Commission to the Dominion Government on the problems facing the dairy industry has been received sympathetically by the British Press. The leading London and provincial dailies have given it editorial comment. None, apparently, is prepared to endorse the commission’s suggestion that New Zealand should claim from the Imperial Government particular preferential treatment over other Dominions in return for extended tariff concessions to imports from the United Kingdom; but the remainder of what the commission says is admitted by the great majority to be just. “The Times,” “Morning Post,” and “Daily Express” all draw attention to the disclosure of the extent to which the British market has been depressed by the dumping by overseas dairying countries other than New Zealand, though at the same time “The Times,” while agreeing that Britain’s international trade position will need to be reconsidered when the Imperial discussions take place In London next year, is strictly non-committal toward the commission’s recommendations. The “Financial News” emphasises the .“unpalatable implications of Elliotism” as it affects Britain’s food supplies from overseas,' the further devejopment of Dominion trade, and the security >if Imperial investments. The “Manchester Guardian” does the same.

Preference To Britain.

The Liverpool “Journal of Commerce,” quoting on this point the recent remarks of Sir James Parr, the New Zealand High Commissioner, draws attention to, the exceptional trade preferences which New Zealand -is giving to British industry, and poinrs out that “any considerable contraction in the supplies of foodstuffs from our southern Dominions will be a further blow to our shipping interests, which have been sufficiently hit by subsidised competition, and even by our own fiscal experiments.”

A warning almost simultaneous with this was uttered by Lord Essendon, chairman of the Shaw, Savill and Albion Shipping Company, when a ship of that line, R.M.B. Mntaroa, left London with a cargo of 500 British motorvehicles for New Zealand. Since the dispatch of this 'record single consignment, and of Lord Essendon’s appeal for the granting of special treatment of New Zealand in the matter of quotas, there has been published in the British Press a letter from the three Members 1 of Parliament in whose constituencies the greater number of the motor vehicles in question were manufactured—Major L. Beaumont Thomas (King’s Norton, Birmingham), Captain W. F. Strickland (Coventry), and Mr. W. G. D. Hutchison (Romford).

Bigger Share of Motor Trade.

This letter, to which newspapers in motor manufacturing areas gave particular prominence, says that, largely as a result of the increased tariff preferences granted by New Zealand to British cars, the United Kingdom’s share in the Dominion’s motor trade has risen since 1929 from 15 per cent, to 7S per cent., and that for the first nine months of 1934, the value of New Zealand’s imports of British cars has increased by £218,000, or 145 per cent “Here then,” they conclude, “is surely an outstanding example of the value of Empire markets—an example which lends weight to the claims of New Zealand primary producers for continued favoured treatment in this market. It should also act us au inducement to those who now thoughtlessly buy foreign dairy products to insist in future upon New Zealand butter and cheese.”

Sir Henry Page Croft, chairman of the Empire Industries Association, nas again pleaded strongly and urgently for an extension Of trade with the Dominions. In a recent Press interview, he declared that ,for the first nine months of this year exports of British manufactures to Empire countries totalled £112,510,000, or £1,740,000 more than the total to all foreign countries combined. “These figures.” he remarks, “present au unchallengeable case for continuing our present preferential treatment of Empire foodstuffs. We must also • refrain from hindering the progress of the Empire countries by’ making hastily conceived trade agreements with foreign countries.”

Iron and Steel Goods.

The New Zealand Dairy Produce Board supplemented Sir Henry Page Croft’s statement with a circular to the Press showing that New Zealand, in the period he mentions, has increased her purchase of British manufactures by £1,171,000, or 21 per cent., the principal Increases being in motorvehicles, iron and steel goods, and textiles.

The preferential treatment given by hfew Zealand to British textile goods is, by the way, being used as an effective argument by the Dairy Produce Board in its sales campaign in Yorkshire and Lancashire. The “drive” it had organised in Leeds and Bradford is now drawing to an end, and it is worth noting that entries for -its grocers’ window display competition number 100 in each city. Yesterday the board opened a campaign in Manchester, and there it is not failing to emphasise that New Zealand makes a return for the free entry of her dairy and other produce into the United Kingdom by admitting many kinds of British goods, including Lancashire textiles, duty free, and imposing higher duties on riyal foreign products. Another of the new Empire food ships, the Blue Star Line’s Imperial Star, has within the past few weeks been launched at Belfast, and on November 22 this company’s second ship, the New Zealand Star, will also be launched. The Blue Star Line has since announced that it is going to build three similar vessels for the Dominion food trade, acJ calls for tenders. The Shaw, Savill and Albiou Company’s second new cargo liner, the Walpawa, left Liverpool on November 6on her maiden voyage to New Zealand, and on November 24 the New Zealand Shipping Company’s new ship Dorset will take her place in the Dominion trade.