THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, January 9, 1937. AT HOME AND ABROAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23084, 9 January 1937, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, January 9, 1937. AT HOME AND ABROAD

The Government has only itself to blame if it finds the results of its industrial legislation interfering with other features of its policy. In various directions it has given repeated assurances that under its supervision cause and effect will not operate in the norma) way The Minister of Industries and Commerce is becoming impatient with the complaint that the result of recent industrial legislation must be to make it virtually impossible for the New Zealand manufacturer to compete with overseas manufacturers in the domestic market The Government, reiterates Mr Sullivan, has repeatedly informed manufacturers that it will not permit the products of efficient New Zealand manufacturers to be displaced by goods produced in countries with a lower standard of labour payment. He speaks of negotiations with other countries with the object of paving the way for action on the Government’s part if it finds it vitally necessary to give the efficient New Zealand manufacturer further protection ‘against importations than he already enjoys. Apart from the controversial aspect of the issue as between the Minister and the dissatisfied manufacturer, the fact remains that here in New Zealand we have Mr Sullivan pointing to the possibility of the creation of higher tariff barriers against imports from overseas. By way of contrast it is extremely interesting to turn to the utterances of Mr Nash, Minister of Finance and Marketing, as an expositor in the United Kingdom of the Government’s theory of trade reciprocity. Mr Nash’s mission is, above all things, to secure an expanding market in Great Britain for this Dominion’s products. The concern of the British manufacturer is to know what New Zealand will do for him if that market is afforded. Mr Nash’s message to him, as delivered at Sheffield, was: “ Give New Zealand an expanding market, inside the shores of the United Kingdom, for'the products that can be brought into being from our soil, and we will see that the credits that are raised from the sale of these products are used to buy products frpm you.” “If the United Kingdom can be persuaded to give New Zealand an expanding market, what will we do? ” asked the ter. He expected, he said, that New Zealand’s exports this year would be worth £50,000,000. “A certain sum was required to pay her bills.

. . -. After all bills had been met the surplus of income left would be at the disposal of the manufacturer of the United Kingdom—if they would come to an agreement.” In the name of trade reciprocity the Minister could hardly have offered more, for he was bidding to the limit of his hand, and indeed has already incurred criticism for bidding considerably beyond it. In another address, delivered before the Reciprocal Trade Federation of Great Britain, Mr Nash explained that New Zealand’s reciprocal trade ideals even went so far as undertaking to buy £750,000 worth of tea from Ceylon, which was nearly all the tea New Zealand imported, provided Ceylon entered into an agreement to buy £750,000 worth of goods made in Great Britain, since she could not buy anything like that quantity from New Zealand. The applause which, as was recorded, greeted this somewhat novel trading proposition was no doubt a tribute to the spirit in which it was made. It did not come, of course, from Ceylon, where the suggestion of' a bargain of this kind might possibly fail, on one ground or another, to kindle enthusiasm. Mr Nash has already had. need of suavity in meeting the British manufacturer’s representation that the exchange rate has meant an automatic addition to the New Zealand tariff affecting the sale of British goods in the Dominion, and consequently the ability of Sheffield, for example, to take New Zealand produce. But as the Government’s missioner of trade reciprocity in the United Kingdom Mr Nash’s message has been one of reassurance to the British manufacturer. Here in New Zealand Mr Sullivan is doing his best, with doubtful success, to reassure the New Zealand manufacturer. In the circumstances he can hardly be finding his colleague’s trade evangelism particularly helpful.