ALIEN TRADE—AN ASTOUNDING PROPOSAL.

Evening Star, Issue 16236, 4 October 1916, Page 7

ALIEN TRADE—AN ASTOUNDING PROPOSAL.

to THE EDITOR*

Sir,—ln Saturday’s ‘ Star ’ you refer to the dinner given in Wellington in honor of the visit of the Japanese ship Akita Mam. Mr T. Young, who is Japanese Consul, and I presume of birth, is reported to have stated that if the New Zealand Government would subsidise the Nippon Yusan Kaisha line that company would make a certainty of it (success). Here is a' cool proposition surely, and remember the’ Japanese Government are already subsidising the company. What is the intention '! Sweeping British companies off the seas —no less. Just before war broke out in August, 1914, the Wismar, the first of the German line, arrived off the Bluff. She got news of the war, and escaped to the Dutch East Indies. That German line was , subsidised to the tune of £IBO,OOO per annum to enable it to capture the trade from our own kith and kin. and a patriotic New Zealand business concern was ready to assist in the process by accepting the Dominion agency. That was a lesson for us, but in spite of it we find people waiting to clasp the Japanese to their hearts, and in Dunedin some merchants are only waiting to clasp the hands of the German murderers of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt. Mr Young stated that the Japanese company would be very grateful for a subsidy—l quite believe it. But what about the New Zealand manufacturer and our labor problems. It is a fact that in our own province certain manufacturers are feeling the pinch of Japanese cheap labor, and their employees are also beginning to suffer. One of "the German trade mottoes was: “Jf yon cannot buy German goods don’t buy any others—do without. Have wo yet to learn.—l am, etc., B. British.