BUYING FROM AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19486, 16 November 1926, Page 10

BUYING FROM AMERICA.

Sir, —Having had occasion to cr< swords in the past with your correspond ent " C.H.N." on the above question, per mit me to contribute a few remarks in support of Mr. Beale's advocacy against " C.H.N.'s" sentiments aud economic theories that, from an Empire point of view, indicate nothing more or less than an obsession that calls for enlightenment by concrete facts. " O.H.N. " appears gravely concerned regarding the welfare of America and the possibility of a setback as a result of excess of imparts. I will not condole or delvo into this aspect beyond Stating that as a comparison between our exports and imports from America this may be taken as the crux of the controversy, as far as our own trade with America is coucerned, and what this Dominion is up against to-day. If " C.H.N." is fond of New Zealand butter and contemplates a trip to America he will pertiaps appreciate when he arrives there that a prohibitive tariff bars our way to trade, and he will also realise how extraordinary it is that the average primary producer in this country fails to understand the true meaning of reciprocity by his fallacy in buying outside the Empire from countries who in no sense of the word lighten his present burdens by opening their markets to him, notwithstanding V C.H.N.'s " reference to " barter," " triang liar " and " multiangular trade." " C.H.N. " ridicules the ideal of a more " self-contained Empire," and openly states such an ideal contains the same fallacy as the proposal for a " self-contained New Zealand." Your correspondent goes to extremes, as he also does in his reference to the Empire refusing io trade with 1,600,000,000 " foreigners." Such an affirmation is, of course, too ludicrous for comment. Thomas A. Fraseh