TRADE WITH CANADA

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 August 1939, Page 12

TRADE WITH CANADA

N.Z. SEEKS CO-OPERATION. MONTREAL, June 22. Trade conditions in South America, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand' and the British West Indies were described to the annual convention of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, at Bigwin Island, Ontario. Export opportunities in Canada’s principal markets and in some of those she hopes to capture were discussed by. trade commissioners who, almost to a man, stressed the necessity of greater Canadian importing from these countries. “Canada must export to live,” said Mr A. M. Wiseman, Great Britain’s senior Trade Commissioner in Canada and Newfoundland. “That is even more true to the United Kingdom, and as the United Kingdom holds the position of being either Canada’s first or second best customer, the lessons must be really obvious.” New Zealand’s Trade and Tourist Commissioner in Canada, Mr R. M. Firth, spoke of the recent recession in New Zealand exports to Canada, and, at the same time, increased Canadian exports to New Zealand. “We know we cannot have a complete balance of trade, but we hope for complete Canadian co-operation,” Mr Firth said.

Mr L. R. Macgregor, Australian Trade Commissioner in the United States, traced’ the growth of manufacturing in Australia. “Industrial development has reached a point where goods to the value of 50,000,000 dollars a year, now being imported, can he manufactured in Australia,” he said. “Of this total about 9,000,000 dollars represents goods now imported from British and other Empire countries. These factors should be considered in estimating the future trend of Australia’s foreign trade.” Mr D. de Waal Meyer, accredited representative of the Union of South Africa at Ottawa, warned' Canadian exporters that they must watch their South African markets. Trade had developed enormously since South Africa went off the gold standard in l 1933, and there had been an accom-j panying industrial development. REMOVAL OF SHACKLES.

Speaking on “The Future of Our Industrial Exports,” Mr L. D. Wilgress, director of the Commercial Intelligence Service at Ottawa, saw “definite signs of a trend towards the removal of unnecessary shackles on foreign trade.” He said Canadian manufacturers might expect a slackening of the tendency towards extreme self-sufficiency of economic nationalism, and added: “The initiative is passing from the restrictionist countries which regulate trade in accordance with their import and currency requirements, to countries with strong curencies practising more unrestricted trade. The trade agreements programme of the United States is beginning to be a real force in the reduction of trade barriers.” Examples of the growth of economic nationalism were efforts being made to produce newsprint out of southern pine in the United States and. .out of gumwood in Australia, he stated. “We know, however,” he added, “that any tendencies toward selfsufficiency which will reduce the opportunities for the export of our finished natural products will be very costly to the consuming countries, and, therefore, there is a limit to the

extent to which these countries can refuse to take the products in which we have such marked natural advantages.”