TRADE WITH BRITAIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11252, 3 July 1922, Page 2

TRADE WITH BRITAIN

YORKSHIRE VIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. Tho Yorkshire ‘Herald” devotes a column to Air R. Dalton’s review of the commercial condition, of New Zealand, “which oallls for some notice bis 'being of much, interest to people in the .Mother Country with Which it is pleasing to note our kinsmen there st-ih preserve its principal dealings. While America ©ends them, 18 per cent, and Australia 15 per cent., and other countries account for something over 16 per cent., the Homeland dispatched to them goods to tho extent of 50 per oent. In regard to exports*, also, Now Zealand finds in Great Britain her principal customer, for we take no less than 86.4 per cent., and the percentages of other countries do hot reach beyond the single figure “Although the imports into Now Zealand in 1921 show a heavy decrease compared with 1920, which is a satisfactory change for the better, they were still much larger than those of any preceding year, and there seems justification for the criticism of the Trade Commissioner that there lias been considerable over-importation, a great part of which was due to colonial Government purchases of coal, electric plant, and railway material, all of which, however, bespeak the possibility of trade expansion m the future. “At all events, Mr Dalto-n is in a position to say that already healthier conditions are undoubtedly prevailing, and it is well to know that the crisis appears to, have been passed' without any notalbie disaster for commercial undertakings. So far as concerns the colonial farmers, they have had their difficulties in consequence of the phenomenal increase in the value of land as a result of what is termed ‘war prosperity’—the ©mine difficulties which Home farmers have experienced to make lands they have bought pay at lower pieces and at the same time meet interest- on mortgages, hut it -is maintad ned that, as a whole, production and exportation for the colonial have not suffered, that this must he the true guide to the real position, and that, therefore, the outlook for the agriculturist there is not discouraging. As least, we may well agree that it is certainly less bo than it is for our own unfortunate holders of land, who receive less aid than do their more fortunate brethren in tho Antipodes.’’