NEW ZEALAND TRADE

Otago Witness, Issue 3593, 23 January 1923, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND TRADE

IMPORTANCE OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES. AGENT NEEDED IN AMERICA. WELLINGTON, January 18. Mr J. T. Martin, of Messrs Wright, Stephenson and Co. (Wellington), addressed the members pf the Chamber of Commerce to-day on what he saw and what he thought from a business point of view during his recent visit to England and the United States. He was greatly impressed with the fact we were opening up to-day in a way never experienced before. New Zealand products should, therefore, be made fully known in every land where trade was practicable. Great Britain had the first call on all New Zealand exports. She supplied a regular service of the most up-to-date insulated and cargo steamers to be found in any part of the world, and provided adequate up-to-date cool stores and unloading machinery in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and Hull. She was linked up with good cable communications, and in countless ways built up arid maintained a direct highway for trading without calling on New Zealand to supply any portion of the necessary capital. In return for all this New Zealand gave of its best, responding to all exactions about high quality and grading, and placing Britain on a preferential footing against the whole world in all its importations of manufactured goods. “In return for this preferential treatment by us,” Mr Martin continued, “Great Britain’s statesmen are thinking in our way regarding reciprocity, but while we appreciate her good intentions, I must confess that I cannot see how anything of a practical nature can be carried out. All this talk by politicians of creating, by welldirected propaganda, a disposition or sentiment in the United Kingdom favourable to the use of New Zealand, Australian, Canadian, and South African products against all others is not only chimerical, but calculated to raise false hopes in the dominions. We all know that in peace times the average consumer does not concern himself whether the goods he purchases come from Argentine, Denmark, or New Zealand so long as the quality and price are right.” He contrasted the action of the Glasgow Corporation, in giving a large order for tramway rails to the American Steel Corporation, with the New Zealand Government’s placing of order for electrical equipment in England In the face of an American quotation that was £15,000 lower. Mr Martin then proceeded to deal with the prospect of securing foreign markets for New Zealand produce. To encourage trade abroad there must be adequate representation. “We have no representation in the United States,” said Mr Martin, “excepting an old gentleman in San Francisco, whom we call our agent and pay £IOO per annum. This agent is of no use whatever to the commercial community, and though he may be a very fine and courtly gentleman, he is completely out of touch with New Zealand trade. I found, from inquiries, that Australia and Canada look alter our interests, and both offices agree as to the necessity of an established New Zealand representative. I was assured at the British Embassy that a New Zealand representative would secure a very good hearing at Washington, and would receive as much consideration as if he represented a country with twice the population and trade.” A description of the activities of the Chambers of Commerce in America was then given by Mr Martin. “The American Chambers of Commerce,” he said, “have a very high standing in the community. You do not hear there, as you do here, that they accomplish very little, and are not sufficiently active.” He did not suggest that New Zealand should copy the United States Chambers of Commerce—he much preferred the lines on which the British Chambers were run —but he would like to see a great deal more attention paid to the deliberations of the mercantile community, as communicated through the Chambers of Commerce in New Zealand than was at present the case. “I have come back from my travelling abroad more than ever impressed with the splendid potentialities of this dominion,” said Mr Martin, “and I feel sure that if we concentrate on our primary products, which we know how to produce so successfully and by intensive, scientific farming increase their production year by year, there is no occasion for us to foster by high tariffs, and at the expense of the general community, local industries for manufacturing products in small quantities that can be much more cheaply made by large mass production in Great Britain and other lands.”