DOMINION TRADE

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 58

DOMINION TRADE

A MORE HOPEFUL OUTLOOK. (From Oub Own Correspondent.! WELLINGTON, May 4. The president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, at the annual meeting today, referred to the proposed meat and dairv pools. “The unsatisfactory handling of New Zealand’s primary products during the’ past season,” he 6aid, “has induced the farming community to urge* the formation of meat and dairy produce pools. No one can blame the farming community for taking strong measures against a repetition of laS season’s disastrous trading, but with the restoration of trade into ordinary channels, and the general stabilisation of markets, these pools should not he necessary. We seem to have overlooked the fact that England, our greatest customer, had been greatly disturbed by a year of general depression, the unemployment of nearly two millions of her industrial population, drastic cuts in wages, the adverse trad© balance, and diminished profits. I believe, however, that with the early resumption of trade on sound lines there will be no call from the producers for the Government or any other kind of arbitrary interference with the natural flow of commerce. We are gradually recovering our pre-war conditions, and lessons from the past teach us that all attempts to artificially control prices and distribution are foredoomed to failure. It is based on the fallacious assumption that the world must have our goods, no matter what the price.”