INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 50, 27 August 1940, Page 12

INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE

PAYING FOR PRODUCE

EXPORTS VITAL TO BRITAIN

"Evening Post," August 27. "Exports are our lifeblood." —Mr. Ronald Cross, British Minister of Shipping. Extensive individual and collective efforts to publicise British manufac-j tures and products in Empire countries are now being made, including a proposal to make a levy on manufac-l turers in order to provide funds for j this purpose. Sir Cecil Weir, a member of the Export Council, in a recent public statement, said the Government was inclined to believe that a small levy on each manufacturer in a group would provide a sum to enable widespread and productive publicity to be made wherever practicable. Recent events in Europe, he said, had drastically affected the capacity of Great Britian to gain- certain currencies. Now the drive is also directed towards the Empire. Principal sources of supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials are now situated in the Empire. This point is emphasised by the agreement made between the British and New Zealand Governments for the purchase of increasing quantities of butter and cheese, as announced by the Dominion Minister of Marketing (the Hon. W. Nash) on Saturday. The British Government has also undertaken to purchase 100,000 tons of butter and 20,000 tons of cheese from Australia and more of them, if available. It is the sjie overseas purchaser of New Zealand meat. It bought wool in New Zealand during 1938-40 to the value of £12,633,389 and wool in Australia for £65,096,483. The British Government j has also purchased the South African \ clip.

These . goods have to be paid for. Part of the duties of the British Export Council is to assist in paying for them in goods manufactured in the United Kingdom. It was hoped to extend the export trade into neutral countries when war broke out; but Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, and the lesser Baltic countries are no longer neutral countries, and France is a closed market.

The export markets for Briitsh goods are narrowed to the United States, j South American republics, Japan, and some other Eastern countries, a few countries in the Middle East, and India and the British Dominions. In 1938 the British Empire overseas purchased from the United Kingdom goods to the value of £234,816,000 and from foreign countries £236,067,000. The British journal "Export," dealing with trade in the British Dominions and colonies, observes that "the Empire offers the best prospects for the export trade drive," and that "the drive must be thoroughly well orgahised and backed by bold methods of publicity and propaganda."

British domestic needs are given second place to the demands for the export $rade in British manufactures. That trade is vital to the United Kingdom if for no other reason than to help to pay for its huge purchases of the Dominions' primary products including meat and dairy produce, and especially for wool, which is now shut out of Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy, its former extensive purchasers.