THE COMMONWEALTH TRADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12000, 24 June 1902, Page 5

THE COMMONWEALTH TRADE.

', ITS PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. Before retiring from the position of president of the Council of the Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce on Wednesday last, Mr. Robert Reid, M.L.0., of Victoria, delivered an address, in which ho stated that he looked to the members, as business men, to resist any attempt to pile up at an enormous cost on a population of 750,000 the machinery of a Government costing enough for an Empire of 40,000,000. Referring to the trade of the Commonwealth for the past year, he said the total trade of the six States for 1901 amounted to £141,725,777. Tho following figures showed the comparative development of trade in decades, viz.: — 1851 ... .., ... £48,364,149 1871 ... 60,075,247 1881 88,193,056 1891 128,696,039 1901 ... 141,725,777 Dealing! with exports, Mr. Reid said the largo export from the Commonwealth of butter and other products might be seriously interfered with by the Russian Government subsidising Siberian products to flood the English market. He hardly thought it fair that we, as an Empire, should go on opening our doors to all the world whilst they shut theirs in our face. Yet, upon the other hand, our race and nation had beaten all records in history 'by the enormous trade with which they had been honoured, and our accumulated wealth and growing power showed no signs of decay. On the question of State-owned cable's, he said it was time the merchants of the British Empire were awakened to the importance of State-owned cables, where an increase of traffic would not be followed by enormous rates to the hindrance of development of our commerce. The matter of cheap and efficient cable communication was of tenfold importance to the Commonwealth as compared with any other portion of the Empire, owing to its distance from the centres of commerce.