TRADE RETURNS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4960, 25 February 1937, Page 5

TRADE RETURNS

SUPPORT FOR DOMINION. London, January 15. Reference to the policy that is being expounded by the New Zealand Minister of Finance and Minister of Marketing, the Hon. Walter Nash, is made in an editorial appearing in the Liverpool Evening Express. If the trade policy of regulated expansion of production and the exchange of surplus commodities can be placed on a practical basis, the writer states, it should form an invaluable economic link in the chain of interests that binds the British Commonwealth of Nations. New Zealand’s greatest, industry is agriculture; Britain’s is manufacture. Here, it is considered, are the ideal partners for the suggested trade agreement. We need New Zealand’s produce; New Zealand wants our products. In recent years we have heard a good deal about surplus production being wasted in various parts of the world. Areas of wheat —our staple food —have been destroyed because the selling price has not warranted harvesting. The criminality of such wastage has been recognised and condemned, but no constructive proposals to prevent repetition have been put forward. Mr. Nash has now remedied this deficiency and his proposals demand the keen investigation of our Government, our manufacturers and our distributors. The effect of the plan, The Evening Express continues, should lead to the cheapening of the staple foodstuffs in Britain and such increase of prosperity in New Zealand that we might confidently look forward to invitation for our island Dominion to send more emigrants to a developing Britain of the East. Further it would lead to more employment in Britain. The writer concludes by asking if there is any reason, if the scheme proves practicable between Britain and New Zealand, why it should not be extended to all the British Commonwealth of Nations.