IMPORT LICENSING

Evening Star, Issue 23143, 17 December 1938, Page 22

IMPORT LICENSING

m MACKENZIE'S CRITICISM MR JORDAN HITS BACK Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, December 16. (Received December 17, at 2 p.m.) Mr W. J. Jordan issued a statement to the ‘ News Chronicle ’ in connection with Mr Moir Mackenzie’s statement. He said it was mischievous and misleading, and was likely to antagonise buyers of English goods. It was also an affront to political feeling in New Zealand. The import licenses system was not designed primarily to curtail British goods in order to bolster up New Zealand industries, but to enable the Dominion to buy a maximum from Britain in order to pay the loan charges. " Wo refuse to be stampeded by Mr Mackenzie into a position in which wo shall spend so much in England that there is an insufficient balance to meet our obligations,” ho said. “We appreciate Mr Mackenzie’s plea that New Zealand should bo allowed to carry out her Socialist experiment. He may bo assured that it will bo carried out to the advantage of the people of New Zealand, to the satisfaction of the London investor, and also to the satisfaction of the Federation of British Industries unless he prevents it by his own actions.” [“lf New Zealand carries out her import restrictions plan we shall go baldheaded for the denouncement of Ottawa. I think we can make it very difficult for the Government to refuse,” declared Mr Moir Mackenzie, Director of the British Industries Federation, commenting on a letter from the federation’s president (Mr Peter Bennett) to the Board of Trade, in which grave apprehension was expressed over the results of the policy on Anglo-New Zealand trade.]