INDIA AND AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 8

INDIA AND AUSTRALIA.

■RELATIVE IMPORTANCE. MR SNOWDEN’S VIEWS. Mr Philip Snowden has been much before the public owing, to his dour and firm stand with' the, other nations in re-gard-to Germany’s indebtedness to’Great Britain. Now Mr Snowden has been comparing the, commercial value of Australia and India as far as Britain’s trade is concerned (states an overseas journal). In a recent speech, he said. “ I hope . the impression will, not be conveyed' that I am trying to minimise the importance of the development of trade in the dominions when I say this, dint I think it’ is a fact which everybody who_ knows the circumstances of those dominions must appreciate aud agree with—-that the. development of those dominions, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, must, at the best, lie slow. You nave a great continent like Australia which has duly a population of 7,000,000, and I believe that population is only increasing at the rate of 2 per cent, a year. DEVELOPMENT SLOW.

You have a vast continent like Canada with about the same population, you have a country like New Zealand which is the size of England, and yet has a population which is only that of Glasgow, ■the development of - those dominions, whatever- you do to encourage and stimulate migration, must be slow, and, therefore; we cannot look to any very large increase of trade under the most favourable circumstances in those parts of the Empire. Take the 'case of Australia. The Australian imports from Britain in 1924 were nearly £61,000,000 and in 1928 that figure had dropped to £55,690,000. Take Canada and the United States. The contiguity of these two countries must ensure a very large amount of trade between them. The imports of merchandise into Canada from the United States for x e Ay,,F!?jA as ending March last amounted to £178,000,000. That is to say Canada bought that amount from the United otates in those 12 months. What did Canada buy, from the United Kingdom’ Just over £34,000,000. or about one-fifth. (( INDIA A BETTER CUSTOMER “India is a far better customer to Great Britain than Australia or Canada or AeW Zealand. Australia took in 1918 between £50,000,000 ahd £60,000,000. but India took £83,000,000. In 1924 Australia took £lO 9s per head of its population of British goods, and that had dropped to £8 17s in 1928. Now they take a high percentage because they are white people, a people with a high standard of living but I am inclined to think that; apart from the slight natural increase of P°P ala “°n, the consumption in Australia; ot British goods has reached for the time being saturation point. ‘lt is not so in regard to India. India takes a far larger amount, but that represents onlv 6s per head of her population, Australia, £0; India, 6?. If you raise the purchasing power of the Australians, by 6a a head, you get a total increase m trade of £2,000,000, but if you raise the purchasig power of the hundreds ot millions of the people of India by Cs a „n, ea d. you increase your trade bv £83,000,000. Therefore. I say that here cal mi Ket Problem of Imperial trade. There is an opportunity, but that can only be done by our helping India along the lines of the policy that was put forward by my right hon. friend, the Lord Pnw Seal. Lend her your capital, instead of the peasants ploughing with wooden ploughs, give them steel ploughs, they can be educated to accept them. Give them motor factors. They may sometime be educated even to the point of using motor tractors. At any rate, do not close your eyes to the possibili-