LOST TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21643, 13 May 1932, Page 9

LOST TRADE

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

COMMONWEALTH’S CONCERN

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 28. An extraordinary decline has occurred in the last few years in Australia’s trade with New Zealand and her other South Pacific neighbours. The latest figures are causing the Federal Government grave concern, for they reveal a serious drift, particularly as far as the Dominion is concerned. In accordance with its declared policy of developing all possible avenues of external trade, it is expected that the Government will order an early investigation to find out what action can be taken to improve the position. ' . Australia might reasonably be expected to have a healthy trade with New Zealand. It did once, but that -happy state of affairs no longer exists. In some quarters it is feared that a feeling of. distrust has given place-to the cordial relations that once existed between the two countries; otherwise it is difficult to say why the figures have fallen away to the extent they have. In 1925-26 Australia, exported to New Zealand goods worth £5,157,000. In 1930-31 the total dropped to £2,970,000. There has been a corresponding decline in imports to the Commonwealth from New Zealand—£2,6so,ooo in 1925-26 to £980,000 in 1930-31. A big factor has been the loss by Australia of a valuable trade in wheat, which has gone to Canada. In the last three years New Zealand’s imports of Australiangrain have decreased from £215,000 to £30.000.

It has been pointed out that Australia has no official trade representative in New Zealand, and the immediate ap-, pointment of a trade commissioner is being urged upon the Government. There has been much talk during the past two years of negotiating a trade treaty with the Dominion, but nothing has come of this so far. The Labour Government, it is felt, was too concerned with its domestic problems, and the present Government has not been in office long enough for it to be able to define a definite policy for the encouragement.,, of trade. So far its policy has been stated in generalities, Statistics covering Australia’s trfede with the smaller islands of the South Pacific also make dismal reading, and it is suggested that New Zealand has been able to develop her trade with the . Pacific Islands at the Commonwealth’s ' expense. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Fiji. The consign- , ment of goods from Australia has been gradually declining since the Commonwealth raised the tariff against Fiji bananas. When Fiji recently framed a new tariff Australia did not share with New Zealand the benefits of preferential treatment.