PROGRESS IN CANADA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21736, 27 February 1934, Page 5

PROGRESS IN CANADA

CAMPAIGN OF BECOVERY {IMPROVEMENT LAST YEAR " WANTS NONE OF THE N.R.A." [from our own correspondent] VANCOUVER, Jan. 30 Canada has passed a second year in its recovery campaign. The balance of trade, which was 37,500,000 dollars (£7,500,000 at par) on the wrong side in 1930, is now 32,500,000 dollars (£6,500,000 at par) in favour of exports. During 1933 business improved 32 per cent; industrial production, 4.'5 per cent; wholesalo prices, 10 per cent; purchasing power, 12 per cent; lumber exports, 37 per cent. Tho last-named now equals in volume tho peak pros- j perity year of 1929. The Prime Minister attributes last j year's excellent record to tho Empire : Conference trade agreements. His critics j say it is clear proof that he drove a i hard bargain at Ottawa. Canadian ex- i ports to Australia increased 40 per cent; to Britain, 16 per cent. Canada captured from United States the lumber trado of China, shipping there 70 per cent of tho timber that went from the North American continent to the Far East. Formerly, her share of this trado was only 30 per cent. The change was duo mainly to tho rise iu production costs in United States duo to the National Recovery Act. Mr. Bennett's Warning Canada is considerably further oji tho road to prosperity than the United States. Recent expenditure has followed the British tradition of easing the natural forces of recovery, rather than embarking, willy-nilly, on a series of costly economic experiments. When certain people dangled "New Deal" and N.R.A. panaceae beforo Canada, Mr. Bennett warned his people against them. Ho said:—"This is not a selfcontained country. It is not a country in which wo can make experiments that are made in other countries. It is a country in which we are dependent on the maintenance of our export trade, and our export trade competes with the highly-specialised Far East and Central Europe. And we must remember that keeping up with the Joneses has been the curse of many people and many nations, and it is idle for a people of ten millions to think for a moment that they have one hundred millions. "We, on the northern half of this continent, have, by persistence, vision and ambition, built up an industrial machine, but we cannot continue to expand if for a single moment we forget that we must rely on our export trade. For the nations that abandon it with their eyes open, realising their self-sufficiency, the question is simple. But it is not so for Canadians. There is no one among us but realises what it means to live side by side with a people of one hundred millions." Powers o! Resistance The superior strain in the population of Canada, allied with its sounder institutions, compared with United States, kept this country from getting as deep in the mire of depression. A more northern race put up stronger resistance. Fifty per cent of the people are of English, Irish or Scottish origin* and the breed held true when the trouble came. The French-Canadian's thrifty habits combined to ward off tho fear and panic that gripped the people of tho United States. Thus, with two years of moderate but steady progress • behind her, Canada wants none of tho N.R.A.