NEW ZEALAND’S JOB

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3139, 8 July 1942, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND’S JOB

Figures relating to. the overseas trade of the Dominion have an added interest in time of war, for they afford some indication of the service which the Dominion is. able to render the Allied cause by supplying foodstuffs' and raw materials. But they also provide proof of a constant service that commands admiration. The journey from the Dominion to the Mother Country is a long one, and to an increasing extent the merchant ships pass through dangerous waters, yet in each of the first four months of the current year ships took away from this country produce to the average value of nearly £6,200,000 and brought here goods to the average monthly value of £3,400,000. In the first ten month's of what is called the production year the overseas trade of this country totalled £96,300,000, and that in the third year of a world war. When the vast proportions of shipments under the lease-lend plan, the record-making deliveries from Canada, the developments that made it necessary to dispatch the largest convoy ever formed from Great Britain to India, and the innumerable demands for transport to ports almost poles apart are taken into considerattion, this steady maintenance of trade to and from the Dominion is seen in its right perspective. It is something for which the people of New Zealand cannot be too thankful: evidence of the way in which our kinsfolk in Britain are keeping their promises to this distant outpost of the Allied line..