TRADE WITH GREAT BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24432, 18 October 1940, Page 6

TRADE WITH GREAT BRITAIN

It is, we think, only the Minister of Finance who has advanced the view that it would be to the advantage of the United Kingdom if the Dominion imported less from her than she does. It is a view that is so extraordinary as to induce the assumption that it is merely expressed in. order to justify, as far as is possible, the extent to which, under the import regulations, there is a complete prohibition of the importation of British goods. An analysis that has been made of the schedule of import licensing regulations for the fifth period has shown that no fewer than 632 tariff items are included in it. It is somewhat disturbing to learn that importations from Great Britain that were made two years ago in 320 of these items are now completely prohibited. In regard to 64 other items, importations from Great Britain have been reduced by from 25 per cent, to 75 per cent. -It is no doubt true that in the great majority of these cases the prohibition of importations is absolute, and that the Dominion must simply do without the goods that are represented by them. This is part of the price which the people have to pay for the policy pursued by the Government that had the

effect of severely reducing the amount of sterling funds available in London. But it is difficult to reconcile this heavy limitation of imports with Mr Nash’s strange claim that “ there is nothing we can do to drive trade to the United Kingdom that we have not done.” The harshness with which the import restrictions operate upon British trade with the Dominion is aggravated, moreover, by the “ ungenerous time limit,” as the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce describes it, which the Government, ignoring all the liability to delay in the delivery of sea-borne goods under existing conditions, has decided to impose on imports that come within the schedule for the fourth period. It is beyond question that the maintenance of the export trade of the United Kingdom is vital to the successful prosecution of the war. Mr Nash seems to have formed the opinion that it is more largely to the benefit of the United Kingdom to export to foreign countries than to the dominions. If this opinion is based on the supposition that the output of the factories in Great Britain is insufficiently great to admit of the needs of foreign countries —of which the number that can possibly trade with Great Britain has been materially diminished —and of the dominions alike being satisfied, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce supplies a corrective when it states explicitly that the manufacturers of Great Britain are able, as well as anxious, to export to New Zealand. The ability of the factories to maintain their output being assured, the United Kingdom must desire all the export markets that are available.