TRADE WITH DENMARK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21297, 26 September 1932, Page 8

TRADE WITH DENMARK

The holding of a British trade exhibition at Copenhagen within a few weeks of Empire preferences, damaging to the Danes, being established at Ottawa, would seem to be untimely. But from the point of view of the balance of trade between Britain and Denmark this is not the case. The plain logic of the matter is that Denmark is eager to reduce the unfavourable British balance with all possible speed. The exhibition was arranged, naturally with the co-operation of tl\e Danish Government, prior to Ottawa, but at a time when it was quite clear that foreign dairy produce, at least, would, under a reasonable basis of reciprocity, be penalised for a further term on the British market. This has been done, yet Denmark welcomes the Prince of Wales with enthusiasm and makes something approaching a festival out of the royal visit with its train of Highland pipers and the commercial battalions. This is more than the expression of the neighbourly spirit. Denmark realises that her only hope of maintaining her present status in the British market is to buy more British goods. Her average exports to the United Kingdom over a period of five years were valued at £52,000,000, this being equal to about £l4 13s per head of the population. The bulk of this trade was in bacon, butter and eggs. The average annual imports from Britain over the same term were worth about £9,800,000, or £2 15s per head. In view of the fact that New Zealand has been purchasing at the rate of £l4 per head

and Australia at over £4, it is merely common sense of the Danes to endeavour to redress the balance. They have been selling mainly in Britain and buying largely from Germany, which in recent years has had more than twice the trade received by Britain. The Copenhagen British Trade Exhibition may well represent the first step in Scandinavian countries toward the breaking down of trade barriers as a direct consequence of the Ottawa agreements. It has been suggested that the Oslo Convention of 1930 will go by the board, in which event the factories of England will find' a greatly-extended market.