BRITISH TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 108, 9 May 1930, Page 7

BRITISH TRADE

ULTIMATE EECOVEEY

BUSINESS MAN'S OPINION

Interesting observations upon economic conditions abroad were made by Mr. Will Appleton, who recently returned from a world tour, in the courso of an address delivered to the Wellington Advertising Club last evening.

Dealing with economic conditions, the speaker stated that matters in the Old Country were not nearly as bad as he had imagined. Business men generally in the Old Land were fully alive to the situation. Nowhere else in. his travels did he see such development as was now taking place in England and Scotland. British firms had awakened to the value of expert salesmanship and advertising, and while they might take a little time to get going, it would bo found that the Old Country, having once put its hand to the plough, would not turn back."Personally," he said, "I have every confidence- in the ultimate recovery of British trade, and I think that within the next five or ten years England will become more strongly entrenched than ever in the world's' markets. Unemployment is more rife to-day in America and in Germany than it is in the Old Country, and that point is not fully appreciated by people hero. In the United States and particularly in Germany, there is a strong inclination on the part of the public to buy British goods, aud English lines were so much in evidence in Berlin that I really wondered whether, I was in Germany at all." MASS SELLING. "One of the lessons I learned from my study of conditions overseas," said Mr. Appleton, "is that in the manufacturing field there must be mass production and mass selling. The only possible way of reducing costs is to buy raw materials on such a scale that the basic rate is reduced to a minimum, and then to manufacture in such a manner that the greatest possible use is made of men and machinery. After that, mass selling is imperative, and in. this connection the selling is of even greater consequence than the making. Of course, in America, the manufacturer has been bolstered up to a great extent, in the . domestic market by a policy of high protection. This has enabled him to foster and build up a large foreign connection, even if, for a time, the- actual overseas trade did not warrant the expenditure made upon, it. The best lesson that the Old Country had was the operation of the M'Kenna duties, and to-day the most flourishing industries in. Great Britain are those protected by the Safeguarding Act. Notable examples, of course, are the motor industry and the silk ancl lace industries. lam satisfied that if England would stop the dumping of foreign goods, tho bulk of the unemployed would be absorbed in industry. It is gratifying to see the factories which have already sprung up from tho limited amount of protection already in force. 3?rom this it can be deduced that the only possible way to develop our own secondary industries in New Zealand is to protect our manufacturers by a high tariff wall; but obviously this must be done discreetly, as it is folly to try to develop industries where the local consumption will never be a serious factor. • 'EXTREMELY rORTTJNATE.' ' "What we in New Zealand have to realise is that the price of all commodities must come back to pre-war level. In many cases they have already done so. This country-has been extremely fortunate, and it is only when one studies the conditions in other lands that it can be realised how lucky we are here. Even in what was regarded as prosperous America, the bulk of the people are much worse off than, we are; while in Europe conditions are more desperate still. An analysis of the income of the United States for. last year, for instance, - shows that 43 per cent, of the total went to capital, 19 per cent, in salaries, and 38 per cent, in wages. And of the 400 billions of national wealth 59 per cent, is owned by 1 per cent, of the population; 90 per cent, of the whole is owned by 13 per cent. Seventy-six per cent, of the people of America are without property of any kind. We have heard a lot about the "unprecedented" prosperity of the United States. To illustrate how erroneous this idea, is, I would state that in Detroit one automobile 'king' had 22 million dollars on deposit in one of the savings banks, and 200,000 wage earners had about three million dollars in the same institution; so that this one man had more than. nev«n times what the 200,000 workers had. The trouble about the United States, and in similar degree in Canada too, is that the resources are bunched into a few hands. The 'boom' has served to pile up the fortunes of the 14,000 American millionaires, but in the process it has made paupers and near paupers of millions of others. The position, is not so acute in Great Britain, but even in the Old Land there are too many idle rich. On the Continent the mass of the people are up against it, and in Germany the average person has to work for his life. Even in. Holland extreme poverty was noticeable." ■■.:.....