WHICH POLICY?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1937, Page 14

WHICH POLICY?

DOMINION'S TRADE

A MESSAGE"TO LONDON

In response to an. invitation from the editor of the "Daily Express" to contribute an article to an Empire trade review, Mr. F. W. Doidge has cabled the following message to London: —

"The return to normal prices on the London market means that the. days of depression in the Dominion are over. This is a primary-producing country. All our wealth comes from the soil. Never has the Dominion known a more prolific season. Money is plentiful. Nevertheless the farming community is in a state of unrest. A Socialist Government is in power. Costs are rising steeply.

"Moreover, the Government's' fiscal policy occasions deep anxiety. Mr. Walter Nash, Minister of Finance, is now in Britain. While Mr. Nash proclaims one policy in London, Mr. Savage declares another in Wellington.

"Mr. Nash, in London, says the Dominion's policy is a policy of freer trade. He promises that New Zealand will take just as much in manufactured goods from Britain as Britain will take from New Zealand in primary products. But in Wellington Mr. Savage promises Dominion manufacturers increased protection. He specifically pledges the Government to a policy of licences and restrictions on imported goods.

"In a young country' like New Zealand it is conceded that some measure of protection must be given to wellestablished secondary industries. But the farmers, on whom the prosperity of the country depends, fear the Government's intention to bolster microscopic and uneconomic enterprises behind high tariff: walls. "It is realised that such a policy might gravely imperil New Zealand's position on the British market. Already Britain takes more than- 90 per cent, of our exports. We take only 50 per cent, of our imports .from Britain.

"The negotiations now proceeding between Mr. Nash and Mr: Walter Runciman, Mr. W. S. Morrison, and Mr. Malcolm McDonald are followed with eager interest in New Zealand. "If Mr. Nash—and not Mr. Savageis voicing the true fiscal policy of the Government, and an agreement for unequivocal freer trade with Britain is reached, an era of prosperity in this country may be anticipated with confidence."