WARTIME CONDITIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 January 1940, Page 10

WARTIME CONDITIONS

NO DIMINISHING OF OUTPUT ANTICIPATED SUPPLYING OVERSEAS DEMANDS [United Press AssociationJ WELLINGTON, This Day. Wartime conditions will not diminish Britain’s output of motor-vehicles for export, according to Mr William E. Rootes, president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders of the United Kingdom. The British motor industry will continue to supply the demands of overseas markets, and these exports will be an important contribution toward paying for Britain’s vital war-time import needs, said Mr Rootes, in a statement issued to the Press in Wellington yesterday. This policy was the outcome of a series of conferences in which representatives of the Board of Trade, the Department of Overseas Trade, and Material Controllers of the Ministry of Supply participated. The result, said Mr Rootes, was ibat the huge potential production of the British motor industry had been so cr gamsed that overseas customers we.e now assured of supplies of both cars and commercial vehicles, the arrangement being to meet fully all orders for export. The export interests of the industry were therefore safeguarded as far as possible in existing circumstances. Though the production oi vehicles for export, without the support of a normal home market, imposed a considerable financial strain on motor manufacturers, this burden was accepted as a necessity in view of national and overseas interests. This important development would not have been possible without the full support and encouragement of tbs British Government. It had been planned to avoid jeopardising the production of military requirements in road and air transport and other essential equipment. The policy ensured that there could be no repetition of what happened in 1914-18, when the British motor industry had to abandon its world markets to its competitors. Vigorous export trade was essential to Britaui in peacetime, and in war became the na tion’s life-blood. The policy laid dowr was, therefore, supremely important not only to the Empire’s war-time economy but also to the post-war de velopment of British trade. UNECONOMIC COMPETITION Uneconomic competition ftom Ger. many in countries outside Europe, < menace to trade prosperity in peace was now eliminated, so that the posi tion of the British motor industry should be greatly strengthened. Mr Rootes stressed the understand ing and consideration his society hat received from the Board of Trade, thi Department of Overseas Trade, ant the Ministry of Supply.