THE TRADE BALANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21131, 14 March 1932, Page 8

THE TRADE BALANCE.

If the figures showing the overseas trade during February, jus),, made available by the Customs Department, bear no special message of hope on the export side, they furnish help to demonstrate afresh the tremendous movement of readjustment that has occurred since prices began their catastrophic descent. Comparisons of figures must be qualified by recognition that movements in exchange have destroyed their complete accuracy; but general conclusions are still possible. For February the exports were valued at £4,434,627. It this seems a little better than for the corresponding month last year, very different reflections arc produced by the figure for 1929, £8,056,083. If what New Zealand has to sellthough quite likely greater in volume than in February, 1929—has lost valuo so enormously, it is elementary that the country's purchases overseas must contract sharply. That they have done so is illustrated by the value of the month's imports February since before 1020 can show so small a total, and, making allowances for all the consequences of lower prices for manufactured goods and any other factors, there can be no mistaking the degree of adjustment implied. In contrast, though

February, 1930, saw exports clown nearly compared with the corresponding month in 1029, imports were actually higher by nearly £;}00,000 than in that; prosperous export year. But too much cannot be based on the mere comparison of one month with another. A sounder indication is given by the progress of the production year, for convenience assumed to bo from July to June. For the eight months ending with February there is more often an excess of imports than the reverse. In only three seasons since 1923-21 has there been an excess of exports over imports for that period. Not only is the 1931-32 season one of them, but il has produced the heaviest apparent excess shown in the nine years. So great a movement as this implies brings its own problems, affecting both employment and the public revenues, but it shows how greatly sensitive to altered conditions import trade can lie, without official decrees or prohibitive duties.