EMPIRE TRADE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 230, 28 August 1929, Page 3

EMPIRE TRADE

GREAT DEVELOPMENTS. EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD’S REPORT. Remarkable evidence of how trade within the Empire has developed is contained in the third annual report of the Empire Marketing Board now iti circulation. “The newness of many of the great exporting industries of ioodstuffs and raw materials in the oversea Empire is not,” states the report, “perhaps, quite adequately appreciated. Every one of the Dominions and many of the Colonies have advanced within'the last fifty years from a relatively modest position into that of important contributors to and purchasers in the great markets of the world. There has been an extraordinary development of the Empire’s resources even since the beginning of the present century. A survey confined only to the leading exports shows that Australians shipments of wool havo risen in this period from slightly over 500 million lb., to about 800 million lb., and her exports of wheat from half a million tons to two million. Canada’s wheat exports have groivn from about a quarter of a million tons to approximately seven million tons, and her exports of newsprint from next to nothing to two million tons. New Zealand’s principal exports are wool and dairy produce; the first has gone up from under 150 million to over 200 million lb., and butter from less than a quarter million, and cheese from IOOjUOOcwt. to nearly one and a half million cwt in each case. In tho Union of South Africa shipments of wool have risen from 90 to 260 million lb. Newfoundland has developed since the beginning of the century, an export trade in paper to the annual value of £2J million. India, which cannot, of course, be compared with the Dominions for newness, nevertheless shows a similar advance. Exports of nearly all her numerous products have shown progress in the present century. Raw cotton, her main export, lias increased from 400 million to nearly 1500 million lb. last year and tea from 190 million lb to 360 million lb. In tho Colonies an even more marked development has occurred. Cocoa exports, for instance, have risen from less than half a million to 110 million lb in Nigeria, and from less than one and a quarter million to 490 million lb in the Gold Coast. Exports of rubber from. British Malaya have grown from nothing to about 370,000 tons, although some part of the rubber exported has its . origin outside British territory. Tea from Ceylon has gone from 140 million to 228 million lb, rubber from 73cwt to one and a quarter million cwt., and copra from less than half a million to two million cwt. Bananas from Jamaica (8-i million to 17 million bunches last year) may be quoted as a further instance. RANGE OF EMPIRE SUPPLIES.

The development of the natural resources of the oversea Empire is thus being carried out with steady effectiveness. The significance of this to people in the United Kingdom may be seen more vividly, perhaps, from another angle. The range of Empire products available in this country is year by year spreading. A revolution in Empire supplies has happened within the lifetime of those who are now barely middle aged. Memories are short in such matters and this revolution has hardly been noticed by the general public which has been so considerably affected by it. An article, not to be found in the land yesterday, appears as a curiosity and a luxury in a limited number of shops to-day, and comes down within reach of everybody to-morrow. But its former rarity is quickly forgotten and the new contribution to the variety of diet (and often also to health) is accepted without curiosity. That this should be so is natural. The additions made and being made by the Dominions and Colonies to our supplies deserve, however, to be emphasised in any consideration of the progress of Empire marketing. Two ■ generations ago, the United Kingdom derived only a very limited range of its requirements from oversea parts of. the Empire. The fiftieth anniversary of the first shipment of frozen meat from Australia will take place towards the end of this year while New Zealand’s meat trade only began in the ’eighties. Fifty years ago only small quantities of butter and cheese came from the Southern Dominions; tho tea industry of Ceylon was no more than a few years old; Canada had not yet begun to export apples, and no pears, plums, grapes, or peaches from South Africa and no apples or pears from Australia had reached this , country. Rubber from Malaya, bananas from Jamaica and cocoa from West Africa were equally unknown. A quarter of a century later, in 1904, these products had all appeared on the United Kingdom market; some of them, such as frozen meat and dairy produce, had become firmly established, others were in their infancy. But there were still hardly any Australian currants or raisins, no New Zealand apples or pears, no South nfrican oranges or grapefruit and no Kenya coffee. Year by year the gaps were filled np. But as recently as the end of the war there were no eggs from the Southern Dominions and scarcely any home produced beet sugar or canned fruits. In the last two or three years cigarettes made from Rhodesian tobacco have become familiar in our shops, while New Zealand is, also, on the market with tobacco, cigarettes from Cyprus and Mauritius have been obtainable, and canned fruit from Fiji, chilled salmon from Newfoundland and grapes from Palestine have, for the first time, been shipped to this country. Nor has this steady spreading of the range of Empire supplies ceased. New experiments in production are constantly reported,, and experimental consignments from many and scattered parts of the Empire give promise of an expansion in the future riot less notable than in the past.

RECENT RECORDS. High record shipments of various Empire grown foodstuffs _ have been achieved in this same brief period of two years. Australian) sultanas and raisins imported in 1927 were 160,000 cwt. greater than in any previous season, while Australian wine more than doubled its previous highest figure. Severe frosts towards the end of 1927 lowered these imparts in 1928, but Australian apples, pears and canned friut all made records. Imports of frozen lamb, frozen pork and cheese from New Zealand in 1927 reached higher points than ever before, but in the cases of the first two were surpassed in 1928, while butter and cheese came respectively within two and three and a half per cent, of the record, and apples and pears both established new records. Shipments of oranges, grapefriut, peaches, grapes and wine from the Union of South Africa were all higher in 1927 than ever before. In 1928 grapes, oranges and grapefruit declined slightly, but were larger than in any year before 1927, while pears, raw sugar and wine all made records. Wheat and tobacco from Canada, coffee from East Africa and tobacco from Rhodesia are other commodities shipped to this country in

1928 in greater quantities than in any earlier year.

Such figures suggest that-the marketing of Empire produce is being actively pursued in England. Many agents, some of them outside human control (the weather, for instance) have intervened. But one conclusion may safely be drawn. The tide of Empire trade is flowing strongly. The, Dominions and Colonies are able to supply more and more of the needs of the United Kingdom and, in return, the United Kingdom is finding in the oversea Empire a growing demand for British goods. Already, ‘with many of the Dominions and Colonics only on the threshold of their economic manhood, the oversea Empire, while it comprises only one quarter of the world’s surface and population, absorbs nearly half the exports of the United Kingdom. The Empire Marketing Board has found in this active, stirring world of Imperial trade many new objectives in the Last year towards tho attainment of which its funds might properly and usefully be employed. It is naturally best known to the 'public through its publicity work, particulars of which are given in the body of the report. But its other activities have been no less vigorously pursued. This, seen as a whole, may be defined as the making possible of an Empire wide effort in scientific cooperation. Such hopeful developments of the last year as the establishment of eight new Imperial scientific bureaux, jointly financed by the Governments of the Empire, and the appointment of the Colonial Advisory Council of Agriculture and Animal Health show how strongly the tide is flowing in favour of co-operation. Scientists and economists can between them offer four main contributions towards the furtherance of Empire Marketing. First, they can help to develop to the full the at present barely tapped natural resources of the Empire, .secondly, they can help to render production as economical as possible by reducing waste in the field, in transit and in store. Thirdly, they can help to ensure that regularity of supply and uniformity of quality which are two essentials of progressive modern marketing. Lastly they can provide knowledge, on the one hand of crop prospects and general trade conditions in any producing industry and, on the other hand, of the special demands and preferences of the consuming public and of the traders through whom that public is reached. Ail the Board’s expenditure on research and on economic investigation serve one or more of these ends. It is essential in such work to take long views; the prizes at stake are tremendous -and, while the trend of the trade cannot be changed in a day, there is no discoverable limit to the rewards that may fall to wisely directed research and well planned economic organisation. Certainly no industry that seeks to hold its own and still more to advance under the prevailing conditions of world competition dare turn its back on the scientist or the economist. In conclusion, it need only bo added that the Board has been encouraged bv the evidence it has received from official and from commercial sources that its work is considered useful by those who may be termed its clients, that is. by the producers of tlr-a Empire at home and overseas.”