A TRADE RECOVERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20252, 10 November 1927, Page 8

A TRADE RECOVERY.

The comment of a London financial journal to the effect that New Zealand is at length emerging from economic conditions the adjustment of which has been too prolonged and has been the cause of much misery is couched in somewhat exaggerated terms. In conjunction with it may be usefully read the statement in which Sir Lennon Raws, a prominent Sydney business man, has been denouncing high protective tariffs and extensive borrowings abroad as dangers to the economic security of Australia. For the Commonwealth. as for New Zealand, the warning respecting the amount of money spent on luxuries,. the excess of imports over exports, and resort to means calculated to increase the cost of production has sufficiently clear application. If the people of New Zealand as a whole have, as the Financial News suggests, been unduly optimistic, and improvident in their spending, thus helping to bring upon themselves an unfortunate experience, there is fortunately now some ground for concluding that they are profiting by the lesson they have received. The figures relative to the overseas trade during the twelve months ended on September 30 reflect a desirable approach to a satisfactory position. It is true that the imports for the month of September showed an increase of over a million in value as compared with the average of recent months but this was probably due to an influx of seasonal goods, and In any case there was a drop of over half a million as compared with the importations during the same month of the preceding year. If the balance as between exports and imports is not yet quite on the right side, since t|iere was still an excess of imports to the amount of £147,591 for the twelve mouths ended on September 30, ' this compares very favourably indeed with the position twelve months previously, when the excess of imports over exports was as much as £3,186,893. It was several weeks ago that the Prime Minister spoke cheerfully of the prospects of the Dominion “ turning the corner ” and this hopeful conviction of his, which he has expressed on more than one occasion, is supported by the general trade indications at. the present time. I