TREATY WITH CANADA.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 125, 13 September 1895, Page 2

TREATY WITH CANADA.

The present Government of New Zealand appear very anxious to enter on a foreign policy. The little fiasco in connection with Samoa will still be fresh in the minds of most people, but that was nipped iu the bud by the Colonial Office. The new line adopted is entering into treaties with other colonies, two of which .are on the carpet. The one proposed with Canada does not appear to be warranted by the volume of trade between the two colonies. During the year 1894 the amount of goods imported into New Zealand from Canada only amounted to £9697, and the quantity of goods sent from New Zealand to Canada reached the sum of £3O. During the three months, Ist April to 30th June, 1896, we received £2OO worth of goods from Canada, and sent them £3 worth by parcel post. Canada is a country very much on the same lines as New Zealand. It has enormous tracts of undeveloped agricultural lands. It is a producer, on a vast scale, of cereals and other Paw products, which we do not require, as we have a surplus of them ourselves. Then our manufactures are very insignificant, and we think it is beyond the range of common souse to imagine that any treaty would cause a diversion of trade from England to New Zealand for manufactured goods. Besides, England is a purchaser of Canada’s surplus raw products, and it is but natural to expect that manufactured goods will find their way back through the same commercial channel. The only apparent reason for proposing such a treaty appears to be to get an excuse for paying a subsidy of £20,000 a year towards a mail service between the two countries.