Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10, 1924 TRADE REVIVAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16607, 10 December 1924, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10, 1924 TRADE REVIVAL.

New Zealand's fortunes are so interlocked with those of the Homeland that it is grat lying to learn that the clouds of depression which for a time settled over Britain are gradually drifting away, and that an era of renewed prosperity is at hand. We have been apt to look rather much at the unemployment figures for Britain or the depression in certain industries, forgetting that the former have been swelled by an unwise* policy of doles, and that- the latter was in most instances but a passing phase. Britain is still an industrious nation, her factories well equipped, her ramifications of finance and commerce world-wide. The income of the nation is obtained not. merely from the manufacture of commodities, but largely from buying, selling, lending, transport, and from numerous services to other nations. It is reassuring to learn from so sound •m authority a,s the Economist that Great Britain’s net national income last year, from her industries and investments, was higher by £330,000,000 than m 1922. There is every reason to believe that this upward movement will continue. The income the nation drew in 1923, representing its productive power and the services it rendered to tiie outside world, is estimated to have amounted to the enormous sum of £3,47o,ooo,ooo—approximately £BO per annum for every man, woman, and child in the country. This total is based on larclul estimates of * the production of industries in that year, when, with the exception of coal-mining and the iron and .steel trades, they were not even so prosperous as they .are to-dav. It. is calculated that British business was working at 95 per cent, of its 1913 capacity, against 86 per cent .in 1922, am! only 80 per cent, in 1921. The surprising thing is that, according to the lalcii.ations of the Economist, production last year stood as high as it did during the boom of 1920—which was a price boom and not a production boom. Mow far the different industries contributed to the national wealth it is difficult, to say, hut in 1907 it was calculated that Britain had a revenue of 140 millions from its foreign investments, and that its shipping and mercantile anil oilier services rendered abroad brought, in no less than 100 millions. It was calculated, too, by the authorities for the census of product ion in that year that the additions to savings and investments amounted to the enormous sum of 320 millions, out of a total income which they set-down at somewhere in the region of 1903 millions. If the nation saved last year on the same scale, the additions to capital in various shapes and forms at home and abroad would have been as hitrli as 578 millions or thereabouts. Despite the burden of taxation, the outlook is bright, and it may he confidently expected that when the production census experts settle clown to their examination next year of the nation’s wealth and work they will find

that 1924 has shown a long st,pj) forward on the estimates for 1923. Trade recovery in Britain is unquestionahlv proceeding apace, and during the first eight, months of this year the total vo.lime of overseas trade rose, as against, last year, by more than l£/7£ millions. This optimism has even deeper grounds than Britain's own growing trade. Modern industrialism and commerce have so linked all the nations of the world that no single o’ne can really prosper by itse.f. The best token of Great Britain’s recovery is, therefore, i lie general trade revival now going on throughout the world—a revival that has led to an estimated increase in tlie export and import trade of twenty-one of the principal countries by 14 per cent, and 10 per cent, respectively for January-.! line, 1924, as compared with the corresponding period of 1923. New Zealand is going to share in this greater activity of international commerce—in fact it is already doing so. The figures we have quoted should give heart to our pasloraiists, agriculturalists, and to the business community generally. Mr David Jones, the chairman of the Meat Export Control Board, and Mr .Te.ssep, a member of the Board, hav*e both returned from England convinced that New Zealand is going to benefit greatly by the trade revival now going on in i.ritain and Europe, and they prognosticate the opening of Continental markets to New Zealand frozen meat. .So far as wool is concerned, there is no reason to doubt the maintenance of a highly remunerative market, the slight temporary set-hack experienced at Napier last evening not withstanding. One of England’s leading wool authorities stated a month ago that, there is a shortage! of cue million hales of wool in- the world at present. If that he so prices must hold good, and the. Now Zealand sheep and wooi industry should for the next few years experience the most prosperous period in its history. We know of no part of New Zealand that has hotter nrospects Ilian this fair region of the East Coast, with its vast extent of fertile country, capable under good farming and closer settlement of producing an abundance of valuable exports. There is hope at last of communications being steadily improved, enabling the development of the district to proceed apace, and if we hut read the signs aright Gisborne is destined in the course of the next decade to experience an era of abounding prosperity, lilting it right into the front, rank of New Zealand's nrovineial centres and giving it the fuli qualification and status of a. city.