"GOOD BUSINESS"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 28 January 1929, Page 8

"GOOD BUSINESS"

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—From, time to time figures are made available showing tho amount and destination of New Zealand's exports, and even a cursory inspection o£ those figures suffices to show how the great bulk of our exports goes to Great Britain. Bor instance, for eleven months ended 30th November last, exports from New Zealand totalled £51,805,103. Of this amount no less than £37,414,151 went to Great Britain, £3,207,837 went to Australia, and £2,051,4*27 to Canada. Unemployment or slackness of trade in the Old Country must therefore have a marked influence on tha returns Now Zealand receives from her exports, particularly those of foodstuffs. Apart from any consideration of fair play, loyalty, or reciprocity, is it not downright bad business for the New Zealand public to give the support it does to products of foreign countries, when the purchase of manufactures of the United Kingdom materially assists prosperity in the country peopled by the customers of New Zealand! With the successful marketing of our primary products absolutely dependent on the industrial activity and commercial prosperity of Great Britain, surely it is a I pernicious, short-sighted policy for tha public of this country to purchase any commodity other than those that arc manufactured by the people who purchaso «ad consume New Zealand exports. When Britain was in the throes of post war reconstruction, it may have been possible to criticise some of her manufactures is not being as well suited to Dominion requirements as those of certain foreign countries that had not suffered the same war disorganisation as Great-Britain. But that state of affairs has long since been rectified. Manufactures of Great Britain torday take second place to none. Yet it is only necessary to see the cars in our streets and the tires with which they are shod (and this is only one branch of industry) to realise that these alone are responsible for large sums of money leaving the Dominion and going to countries that not are interested in our national welfare nor our primary products. . It is all' very well for New Zealanders to rejoice over the price of wool or butter or stock, but while doing so it is as well to> remember that good prices are only possible so long as the work people of Great Britain enjoy a good measure of employment. . . Let industrial prosperity falter m Great Britain and only too quickly will it be reflected in the prices paidfor New; Zealand produce. Let us all support tha country which supports us if only, because it is "good business."—l am, etc., PRO NEW ZEALAND. ;