The New Zealand News WEDNESDAY, JUDY 9, 1924. OUR FOREIGN TRADE

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11876, 9 July 1924, Page 6

The New Zealand News WEDNESDAY, JUDY 9, 1924. OUR FOREIGN TRADE

Foreign Trade! It is the idea suggested by a walk through the halls of the Winter Show. Reflection discovers, at the outset, that our foreign trade is based on the primary industries of the Dominion. What we grow we export; what we use we import. To the latter we are adding what we make, and the quality revealed to us by the Winter Show, together with the statistics built up by the making, make it certain that we shall use more and more of what we make as we grow Older. But it is, at the same time, evident that never Shall we be able to use all that we make. As this output of our factories is equal to anything made anywhere else, and in many instances better, it ought to sell freely anywhere its makers may choose to send it. Why, then, don’t they send it to the ends of the earth? The answer made at every time of question is triple—High Tariffs, High Freights, High Wages. The tariffs of the foreigner are regarded as prohibitive; the freights charged by our shipowners are discouraging ; the wages our manufacturers have to pay are too far above the wages prevailing elsewhere to permit of competition in- the markets of elsewhere. That, is the reasoned reply always made to the question, and it is always regarded as convincing, if not satisfactory. At all events, an export trade in manufactures is regarded as a thing to he dreamed of, hot as pertaining to practical politics. This position of negation is strengthened by citation of the immense resources of all kinds that have been accumulated by the long-settled manufacturing industries of the world. Of these resources, it is said that our manufacturers have nothing like such resources, their experiences being but brief, and that, therefore, any attempt to establish a foreign demand for our admittedly good manufactured products would promptly meet with overwhelmingly disastrous competition. For example, if one points to an admittedly superior article, say, the rugs of Petone, Mosgiel, Kaiapoi, the answer is that they can make just as good rugs in the Home establishments, and would make them at the first serious attempt to export from New Zealand for the world’s use, in quantities far beyond our capacity, and would sell them on terms simply ruinous to our competition-.

The first answer to this is a question. What are we going to do, eventually, with our manufactured products? The output is growing year by year of these factoriee, the goods of which we admire so greatly in the Winter Show. With them grows the value of investment in manufacturing plant, the volume of weekly wages, the number of workpeople engaged, and the extent of the families dependent on them. These between them are a great vested interest. It is now maintained in prosperity. But when it is not possible to consume the products of this vested interest —vested in the best sense of the word—what are we going to do about itP These manufactured products and the vested interests based upon them are growing fast; their value already surpasses the value of our mighty volume of exports; when the output of the factories reaches a level beyond the reach of local demand, be it ever so much stimulated' by patriotism, pride, and the instinct of self-pre6ervation in the makers, what will happen? There will he piles of beautiful fabrics and excellent wares, unsaleable, and growing daily larger. The wages of labour, the interest of capital, the upkeep of machinery—these things are the lifeblood of the great aggregate of local

industries. Are they to become nightmares to kill the welfare of half the population ? The thought of them should inspire the courage to face foreign tariffs with goods of superior quality, and business acumen to deal with shipowners to whom cargoes are the breath of life. The time is at hand when the output of the secondary industries must find profitable export. The only alternative is to keep the industries stationary in the face of increasing population. But that is a thing unthinkable .by the self-reliant people who have built New Zealand by self-reliance. What is this Winter Exhibition but the product of self-reliance ? In speaking of exporting, one does not, of course, include all the things that engage local industry. For instance, no one contemplates an export of motorcars, on which some work is done in the local establishments. But all things in this category are too obvious to require more than general mention. There is a great body of tradeable goods wholly manufactured locally, which must shortly look to foreign markets to sustain their value, leaning on the foreigners just as firmly as do the products of the primary industries. The question is how this export trade is to be brought about, and in what directions will it be accommodated in the outside world. That question is for the manufacturers to answer. To find an answer, they should assemble in meeting and talk things over seriously, so as to be ready with some scheme of operation before the pressure of unsold and unsaleable goods is felt. One thing is clear. The problem is not for individuals to solve. Its solution is a mass affair. A mass of traders could, in co-operation, best do the blazing of the export trail. And as they do the blazing there might he brought into the background the suggestion for an export controlling body of some kind, perhaps even a joint stock company, to distribute goods of New Zealand manufacture in other lands. The great thing, however, is to get the traders together to talk the matter over, in the light of practical experience. If there is such a meet, Sng, and if it has courage as well aB practical experience, the problem of export will not, we feel sure, fail to find an early (solution.