POST-WAR TRADE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3853, 3 December 1917, Page 3

POST-WAR TRADE.

WHAT BRITAIN PLANS.

NOT VENGEANCE BUT SELFPRESERVATION.

"Britain's attitude in trade matters after the war will not be dictated by motives of vengeance or hatred," said the British Trade Commissioner (Mr R.W. Dalton) when addressing the Conference of New Zealand Chambers of Commerce at Wellington last week. "But the Imperial Government has realised during the war that there are certain methods of trading adopted! by Germany in the past which it is not desirable that •Germany should be allowed to adopt in the future. So long as Germany continues to hold her present ideas %f what is right and what is wrong, we must have the means of resisting her attacks, in the doimmercial field and elsewhere. It is not a question of hatred and vengeance ; it- is rather a question of self-preservation. If Germany had,, an empire like the British Empire, she would not hesitate to establish an Imperial Customs Union that would secure to her all the benefits of tralde within her own Empire. The people of the British Empire are justified in adopting a similar attitude." "I think we are all agreed: that Germany forced us into this war. We had nothing to do with starting the war. Germany was entirely responsible. The war up to the present time has cost us some thousands of millions o!f pounds, and it is only right, apart from all question of hatred, that we should recoup ourselves if the means are available, for the expense to which Germany has put us. If we can adopt a system of trading that will assist us to recover some of the money spent on this war, then we are entitled! to adopt that system. It is simply a matter of business and common sense, and the question of vengeance does not enter into it at all. We are entitled to adopt preferential and reciprocal trading because it suits ourselves."

Mr Dalton proceeded to reply to a suggestion that New Zealand importers hadi to look outside the Empire for certain articles because the British manufacturers could not supply them. "The manufacturers of the United Kingdom are working under extraordinarily severe disabilities at the present, time," he said. "They are practically driven out of the New Zealand market in certain classes of goods owing to the necessity of concentrating their efforts on war work. But the position will be different when the war is over. There are very few things that New Zealand want.. that cannot be bought in the United Kingdom. I'find a great deal of misunderstanding on that point. Some New Zealand traders have an idea that New Zealand! is dependent upon Norway for electrical goods, for instance. That is not so. I know that there is a great opportunity for the development of trade in electrical goods in New Zealand and I am bringing the fact before firms at Home. Anything that the Dominion wants in the w,ay of electrical goods it will be able to get in the United Kingdom.

"I find doubt in New Zealand as to what goods can be obtained from the United Kingdom at the present time. Some people seem to have an idea that because of the war it is not pos•sible to get anything from Britain. The fact is that last year 60 per cent. of all the goods New Zealand imported came from Britain. There are industries in the United Kingdom, employing mainly female labour, that are severely depressed at the present time and that are very anxious to extend their trade overseas. Far from being unable to deliver goods, they are eager tk> get orders, and I know that the Imperial Government is anxious to develop export trade at every possible point."

•Mr Daltoni added that a statement had been made in New Zealand, on high authority, that the Imperial" Government had increased freights in order to check exports from Britain during the war. There was no foundation for this statement. The Imperial authorities had ample means of checking or preventing expwts of goods that-ought to be kept in the country for war purposes. The rise in freights had been due to other causes altogether, and he did not want any person in New Zealand to believe that Britain was unwilling to maintain the export trade throughout the war.