WORLD TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25851, 23 May 1945, Page 6

WORLD TRADE

EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL ISATION AMERICA’S POSITION Mr Sydney Greenbie, special assistant to the American Minister in New Zealand (Mr K. S. Patton), addressed a meeting of members of the OtagoSouthland Manufacturers’ Association in the University Club last night on the subject of “ World Trade.” The vice-president of the association (Mr J. A. Scouler) presided, and the Mayor (Mr D. C. Cameron) welcomed Mr Greenbie on behalf of the city. Introducing his subject, Mr Greenbie said there had been a cry that they should completely destroy German industry. History was repeating itself. Germany had tried to do the same thing in France, Belgium, and Holland. Japan had gone into China in 1931 for one reason, and that was to smash China’s industry when it started to rear its head and the country was becoming industrialised. Eighty years ago Japan had no industries, but 40 years later she was so completely “industrialised with American aid that she was not only able to compete with America, but to take her place as a Great Power. Cry for Industrialisation

There was a clamour everywhere for industrialisation, Mr Greenbie said. Once the market was created the people in that region began to reason that they should manufacture their own goods, and they then began to look for machinery to make these goods. The process of industrialisation had gone on all over the world, and at such a pace in the last 20 years that some countries not only set up factories to make goods they could consume and use, but sought to go into heavy industries to make their own machinery. That had been the case with Japan. “We foolishly disposed of our olafashioned looms and ( spindles _to Japan,” the speaker said, “and with the textile industry Japan started to industrialise herself. In 40 years she had caught up with America.” Mr Greenbie said that during the war America had increased its machinery and its factories by 40 to 50 per cent., but though it might be thought that the United States had developed so much industrially that it could stand on its own, that was not so. They had never be'en self-sufficient and were as dependent on world trade as New Zealand was. America had 12,000,000 unemployed during the depression, and that was the result of the disorganisation and dislocation of world tF “ We are not as isolated and pendent as you think we are,” the speaker declared. “We are dependent on the rest of the world for a great many of our major products—rubber, tin, and tungsten, coffee and spices and suchlike.” Once the world began to raise barriers to trade, the United States had suffered. It was tr ue, said that their national income had risen as a result of the war by about 150 billion dollars a year, which was just a cruder and crueller way ot carrying on world trade. The moment a country’s income went up, people had more to spend on good food and the wherewithals of jfife. And America found, for instance, that it was not producing enough meat, and had to go on rations. If America’s standard of living was to be maintained after the war, jobs would have to be found for 6Q,000,000 workers, and the jobs ot about 5,000,000 workers depended on the things they bought from other parts of the world. Not Isolationist

« We have been accused of being isolationist,” said Mr Greenbie. “We are not, and never have been, isolationist, apart from a few powerful people, because we have had to think in terms of the whole world.” said Mr Greenbie. America had perhaps the highest standard of living in the world, but it was entirely dependent on conditions and standard of living of the rest of We are not afraid of you, and you arc not afraid of us—Britain has been o?r tot customer,” said Mr Greet**, “ but we have to be afraid of those countries which are going to put UP their machinery instead of seeing to the weuare or their own people.” That was the P r iem that had to be faced, and that was what America had to overcome for the last year | e b concluding reciprocal trade agree ments. -