TRADE WITH BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 8

TRADE WITH BRITAIN

' A YORKSHIRE VIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. The Yorkshire Herald, devotes a column to Mr. R. W: Dalton's review of the commercial condition of Now Zealand, "which calls for some notice as being of much interest to people in the Mother Country with which it is pleasing to note our kinsmen there still preserve its principal dealings.. While America sends them 18 per cent, and Australia IS per cent., ana other countries account for something over 16 per cent., the Homeland has despatched to them goods to the extent of SO per cent. In regard to exports, also, New Zealand finds in Great Britain her principal customer, for wo take no less than 86.4 per cent., and the percentage of other countries do not reach beyond the single figure. . . . " Although tlie imports into ,New Zealand in 1921 show a heavy decrease compared wit> 1920, which is a satisfactory change for the better, they were still much larger than those of any preceding year, and hence there seems justification for the criticism of tho Trade Commissioner that there has been1 considerable over-importation, a great part of which was due to Colonial Government purchases of coal, electric plant, and railway material, all of which, however, bespeak the possibility of trad© expansion in the fnUire.

At all evente, Mr. Dalton is in a i position to say that already healthier conditions axe undoubtdly prevailing, and it is well to know that the crisis appears to have been passed with«at any notable disaster for commercial undertakings. So .far as concerns the Colonial farmers, they have had their difficulties in consequence of the phenomenal increase.in the value of land as a result of what is termed ' war prosperity '—tho same difficulties which Home farmers have experienced to make lands they havo bought pay at lower prices and at the same time meet interest on mortgages, but it is maintained that, as a whole, production and exportation for the colonial have not suffered, that this mast be tho true guide to the real position, and that, therefore, tho outlook for the\ agriculturist there is not discouraging. At least we may well agree that it is certainly less so than it is for our own unfortunate holders of, land, who receive leas aid than do their more fortunate brethren in the Antipodes."