IMPORT CONTROL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 4

IMPORT CONTROL

ONE-SIDED TREATMENT SUGGESTED UNITED KINGDOM MIGHT TIRE OW POSITION VIEWS OF MANUFACTURERS* REPRESENTATIVE [United Press Association] WELLINGTON. This Day. The day when the United Kingdom tired of one-sided treatment would be the day when New Zealand would “sit up”; it would be the death knell of import restrictions, said the president. Mr E. A. Christie, at the annual meeting in Wellington yesterday of the United Kingdom Manufacturers and New Zealand Representatives’ Association. Mr Christie went on to say that retaliation was in the news at present in connection with air raids on London and Berlin. What would New Zealand say if the United Kingdom fixed a definite date of arrival for ships carrying its primary produce and ruled that shipments arriving after that date would be shut out or deducted from future shipment quotas? They could well imagine the consternation and indignation which would be expressed, and yet this was what New Zealand had, in effect, said to United Kingdom exporters. It was worthy of note that for 98 years the trade and commerce of this Dominion was conducted successfully without such cumbersome things as import restrictions, and it was most regrettable that the celebration of 100 years’ existence should have found New Zealand saddled with the system misnamed as import regulations. If restriction was substituted for regulation they got nearer the proper name. At a time when New Zealand should have been filling its warehouses to the roofs in preparation for the conflict which was about to break over their heads, they were raising barriers which prevented them from replenishing their diminishing stocks. If the people of this country could go into some of the warehouses and see rows and rows of bare shelves they would perhaps realise the result of two years’ so-called import regulations. He doubted whether any other part of the British Empire had such severe restrictions on United Kingdom goods. There appeared to be some conflict between a request made by the United Kingdom Government to the New Zealand Government and the stated desires of the United Kingdom Government and United Kingdom manufacturers for more trade. The association still felt that New Zealand should be in a position to respond more fully to the urgent demands of United Kingdom exporters for more orders. Their motto to-day was: ‘Export or Expire—Britain Delivers the Goods.” The ruling that goods which did not arrive here by 31st December would result in the cancellation of third and fourth period licenses, was received with great disappointment by manufacturers and exporters at Home, and they could well understand this when the conditions under which they were working were realised. It would have been a generous gesture to have granted an extension at least till 31st March, 1941. The arbitrary fixing of a date wh*ch in many cases was impossible to fulfil by reason of air raids, black-outs, transport and shipping dislocations, contrasted so vividly with the generous treatment which the United Kingdom had always extended to New Zealand exports of primary produce.