TRADING RELATIONS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 262, 3 August 1939, Page 5

TRADING RELATIONS

New Zealand-Australia Position Deplored By Telegraph—Press Association. DUNEDIN, August 2. “Trading relations between New Zealand, and Australia have never been wor.se,” said the retiring president ot the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, Mr P. O. Smellie, in his address to the annual meeting of the chamber this evening. He was referring particularly to the recent development under the import selection policy by which Australian purchases bad been drastically curtailed, and expressed the hope that an attempt would be made to improve the present position. “Australia and New Zealand are the two most distant members of the Empire, drawn together by history and geography, with a comjnon heritage and culture and sloiiilar aims, ideals and problems, and shortly to be brought within nine hours of each other by modern transport. Yet the trading relations between us have never been worse,” he said. “I do not refer particularly to the potato and orange wrangle which is a standing reproach to both Governments, but more to the recent developments under import selection policy by which Australian purchases have been drastically curtailed.”