DOMINION OUTLOOK

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 168, 19 June 1925, Page 4

DOMINION OUTLOOK

GETTING BACK TO PRE-WAR

CONDITIONS.

WELFARE SHOULD BE ASSURED.

For tho year ended March last our im. ports amounted to £49,821,095, while our exports totalled £64,771,158, the difference in P otir favour being £4,950,063 (stated Sir George Elliot, chairman of directors, when addressing the annual meeting of the Bank of New Zealand at Wellington to-day). It must bo obvious that this surplus is quito inadequate to meet tile amount which is annually required to pay interest on loans raised by the Government and local authorities outside the Dominion. It is true that towards the end of the financial year there was a considerable slump in the price of certain of our primary products, and that a fair proportion of our exports was held over in the hope of a better market developing in the iieai future- but, even if prices had been mamtained, and all the goods in store been shipped, (hough the relative position would have been improved, the final balance would still have been insufficient to justify ari optimistic view of the position at uie prosent moment. Any advice as to the need for general economy is unpalutablc. It lifts boon given so often that ain afraid it, falls on deaf ears. In New Zealand there is not the slightest doubht that, in private life, people are spending too much on imported luxuries, and it is time to call a halt and consider the position. New Zealanders particularly dislike the idea' of trusts and combines, and rightly so- but we must not forget that anything in’ the nature of a trust is abo disliked in Great Britain. It would be unfortunate if tiie formation of pools for the management and sale of all our products were carried to such extremes as to impress our customers across the seas with the idea that, whatever the conditions were in New Zealand, we intended, either by flooding the market or by keeping it bare, to extract the last penny possible for our wares. Let me say again, that the United Kingdom is our great market, and by ordinary methods we have built up an increasing business there;- but if the idea gained currency that -we intended to exploit it for all we were worth, it is conceivable that the people generally might refrain from buying New Zealand products and turn their attention to other lands for their requirements. They have grown accustomed to the ordinary rules of supply and demand, and they bear with equanimity soaring prices when supply is short, but they expect the natural fall in values when the supply is plentiful. The proper storing shipping and marketing of our wares is essential, but the greatest care should be taken to avoid even the appearance of price-fixing or market rigging, more especially at the present time, when everything from New Zealand is popular in the Mother Country, and when attempts are being made to draw the bonds of Empire closer, economically as well as socially. When I was in tho Old Country recently I noticed with much gratification the high esteem in which New Zealand and New Zealanders were held. Without a doubt this favourable impression is to be traced to the men who went overseas to fight the battles of the Empire, to the way they lived, and to the way they died, and it behoves us that we should be extremely careful in the future that we do nothing to alienate the goodwill so engendered. We are gradually settling down to the even tenor of our ways; bit by bit we are getting back to conditions which prevailed prior to 1914. New Zealanders possess u great inheritance; a productive country with an equable climate, where extremes are unknown; a land of fertile plains and smiling uplands; a people of fine British stock as pure as that to be found in the heart of England. We have many valuable assets, and if, minding our own business, we exorcise ordinary wisdom in tho general management of our affairs, the future welfare of our country is assured. We shall naturally have ups and downs like others, but if we work and strive with a due regard to the unity and well-being of all the varied sections of our mighty Empire, we in New Zealand must, in the general prosperity of a united people, reap an abundant harvest.