Empire Trade.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XI, Issue 201, 18 August 1921, Page 5

Empire Trade.

AROUSING PUBLIC INTEREST. SUPPORT FOR BRITISH INDUSTRIES. NECESSARY TO OUR SAFETY. [Per Press Association.] Wellington, Aug. 17. In moving the adoption of a resolution at a meeting of the New Zealand Association of British Manufacturers and Agents, the president, Mr. Scott, stressed the necessity of focussing public attention and interests on British industries, Empire trade, and also the need for encouraging amongst the merchants and the public a determined loyalty and an enlarged sense of duty especially in view of present abnormal conditions, to kindred people and industries in the Homeland. There was abundant evidence, ho said, that British industries were fighting for their very existence. A great danger confronted us if the increasing support of foreign products was perpetuated. The time, therefore, was most opportune for the association to give the weight of its organisation to the service of British industries. It was necessary to remind the people of tho Dominion that our individual, national, and economic safety depended enormously on the trade support they give the Homeland industries. While New Zealand had continued to extend her loans from the United Kingdom for development purposes, concurrently she had not extended purchases from the Motherland. She had steadily expanded purchases elsewhere. By 1919, loans from tho United Kingdom amounted to £95,708,000, a 65£ per cent increase since 1910. Purchases had recovered considerably, £11,839,000, but this represented only 38J per cent of the imports, whereas in 1910 the percentage was 62| per cent. It was vital to producers in •the United Kingdom that they should to given assistance and encouragement to get into the* full swing of post-war production without being undermined during the process. duty, therefore, was to advocate Empire trade. The time was surely arriving when the United States might attempt to. frame some of the terms of international reciprocity. So long as the units were separately loaded with foreign goods, without reciprocal international terms, there might be very serious disadvantage to themselves and the Empire. Tariff revision would be before Parliament next session, and an opportunity would then arise for the association to emphasise the claims of British industries and impress upon the Government the advisability of collecting from foreign products any additional customs revenue required. Our trade patriotism was expressed in deeds, and should not fall below the standard of our war patriotism.

WHAT BRITAIN CAN DO. Wellington, Aug. 17. An address was delivered by Mr. R. W. Dalton. British Trade Commissioner, before the meeting of tho New Zealand Association of British Manufacturers and Agents. The subject of the address was Inter-Imperial trade. Mr. Dalton pointed out that in 1913 Britain’s export's totalled £525,000,000, of which 63 per cent were exports to foreign countries as distinct from British possessions. Germany alone took almost as much British exports as Australia and New Zealand combined. About 80 per cent of those exports consisted of manufactured goods, as was the position in the United States, the then greatest overseas trading country in the world. While Mr. Dalton did not think Britain would reach normal for some little time yet, one could not ignore th© importance of the fact that in 1919 Britain’s total exports of manufactured goods were valued at £1,121,000,000, or nearly £300,000,000 more than those of the, greatest competitor. Thia was a. magnificent achievement, proof that the United Kingdom’s capacity for production for export had increased rather than diminished. The sudden recovery of trade may be due to abnormalities. He was not prepared to admit that it cannot be maintained at the present basis. Ho would like all Now Zealand to know and feel confident that the undoubted preference shown for all things British was not misplaced, and the people were not leaning on a broken reed. The choice was made where it was safest. Mr. Dalfon combatted the suggestion that the theory for the development of inter-imperial trade was unsound because the overseas Dominions and possessions could not absorb the exportable productions of the United Kingdom. He quoted figures to show there was plenty of room for improvement on the position as it existed before tho war. Ho firmly believed that the United Kingdom’s capacity for production was not onlv unimpaired but increased. The war years and some years after witnessed a decline in Britain’s share of the overseas trade, but he believed it had also witnessed a* growth in the reeling in favour of trading with the British Empire, and, in addition, the Imperial Government was taking a much greater interest in the development of the export business, also in the direction of organising a British industries fair, by developing overseas organisations, and in other ways, with i 1° giving every °PP°rtunity to British firms to recover the lost ground and keep it.