FLOOD OF FOREIGN TRADE

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12315, 9 December 1925, Page 7

FLOOD OF FOREIGN TRADE

“THINGS ARE BAD IN ENGLAND” RECIPROCAL PREFERENCE WANTED DEPENDENT UPON DOMINIONS “It is only trade with the Dominions that is enabling England to keep her end up at all. 'The British people are beginning to realise that something must be done to increase the trade between tire Mother Country and the Dominions.” This was the statement of Mr W. J. Gaudin, a member of tike Wellington Provincial Association, when reporting upon the results of the conference of Empire Manufacturers, which he attended during his recent visit to the Old Country. A great deal was due to the preferential concessions which, the Dominions had granted the Motherland in respect to her goods, and there was now a rea lisation that reciprocity was required. There had been expressed at the conference a desire to assist the Empire trade as far as possible, and to eliminate the foreign trade- element, which at the present time was crippling the industries of Britain. Businessmen were despondent and pessimistic, and complained unoeasingly of the heavy burden of taxation and also of the unemployed. The country was flooded with cheap foreign goods, which the British manufacturer could not make for the price at which they were being retailed. '

The reimposition of the McKenna duties was already having a marked Bffect upon the - trade outlook, but a great deal of the goods bad been robbed of this measure through -the two months’ notice given the foreign importers. The result was that when the time for the reimposition of the duties arrived, the Thames Embankment was stacked tiers high with foreign makes of cars which' had been imported during the .period of respite. The same position had prevailed in respect to silk, large quantities of which had been brought into the country just prior to the duties being reimposed. One manufacturer had in fact received a letter from a business firm seeking further time in the payment of an account. “We have imported a lot of foreign silk,” they had stated, “and had to pay cash for it. so the call on our finances is heavy.” This at least had hesn candid, if a daring departure from Empire trading. Mr Gaudin was of ' opinion that things in England were not so black as painted. While there were many abuses of the dole by youths who drew 18s per week (more than some of them would earn at work),- and married women drew the dole as well as their husband’s wages, these things would he remedied in the course of time. “Things are had in England,” he concluded, “but there is no need for despondency..”-