NO STAMPEDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23686, 19 December 1938, Page 9

NO STAMPEDE

MR JORDAN EXPLAINS LICENSING OF IMPORTS REPLY TO BRITISH INDUSTRIALIST (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph -Copyright) LO'NDON, Dec. 16. Mr W. J. Jordan issued a statement to the News Chronicle in reply to Mr Moir Mackenzie's statement. He said it was mischievous and misleading, and was likely to antagonise buyers of English goods. It was also an affront to political feeling in New Zealand. The import licences system was not designed primarily to curtail British goods in order to bolster up New Zealand industries, but to enable the Dominion to buy a maximum from Britain in order to pay the loan charges. "We refuse to be .stampeded by Mr Mackenzie into a position in which we shall spend so much in England that there is an insufficient balance to meet our obligations," Mr Jordan said. "We appreciate Mr Mackenzie's plea that New Zealand should be allowed to carry out her Socialist experiment. He may ba assured that it will be carried put to the advantage of the people of New Zealand, to the satisfaction of the London investor, and also to the satisfaction of the Federation of British Industries unless he prevents it by his own actions."

"If New Zealand carries out her import restrictions plan we shall go baldheaded for the denouncement of Ottawa. I think we can make it very difficult for the Government to refuse," declared Mr Moir Mackenzie, Director of the British Industries Federation, commenting on a letter from the federation's president (Mr Peter Bennett) to the Board of Trade, in which grave apprehension was expressed over the results of the policy on Anglo-New Zealand trade. VARIED COMMENT NO BREACH OF PACT VIEW OF MANUFACTURERS •Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 18. The declaration of Mr Moir Mackenzie, Director of the British Industries Federation, which was cabled on Friday, regarding New Zealand's trade position, was the subject of comment by a number of Wellington business men. Mr A. P. O'Shea, Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, said that there could be no question of New Zealand not having lived up to the spirit and the letter of the Ottawa agreement. Last year, he added, the Dominion had actually imported more from the United Kingdom than its income justified. ~ ~. •'., Mr D. Hogg, president of the United Kingdom Manufacturers and New Zealand Representatives' Association, expressed the opinion that British industrialists 'had come to a perfectly logical conclusion. New Zealand, he said, was not self-sup-porting. Its existence depended on the British Navy, British markets, British finance, and British goodwill. Therefore, any development of trade relations should be based on close co-operation with the Motherland. Mr G. W. Guthrie, president of the New Zealand Importers' Federation, said that the present regulations bristled with trouble both known and unknown, and he considered that the Government would be well advised to reconsider the whole matter.

A statement issued by the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation says that the United Kingdom has always acknowledged that New Zealand, from the earliest days, has acted in the spirit of Ottawa long before .the Ottawa conference i was thought of. Since the Ottawa conference New Zealand has carried out the agreement in the spirit as well as in the letter, and the Government's recent policy statements declare as close an adherence to it in the future.