N.Z. DAIRY CRISIS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18586, 21 December 1934, Page 5

N.Z. DAIRY CRISIS

REPORT OF COMMISSION

BRITAIN SYMPATHETIC

DOMINION TRADI3 SUPPORTED

(From a Special Correspondent.) LONDON, Nov. 14

The report), of, tlie; (Ntnv> Zealand Royal t« -the Dominion Government on the problems facing the dairy industry lias been received sympathetically by the British press. The leading London and provincial dailies have given it editorial comment. None, apparently, is prepared to endorse the commission's ‘suggestion that Ne'iv Zealand should claim from the Imperial Government 1 particular preferential treatment, over other Dominions in return for-: extended tariff concessions to imports from the United Kingdom; tout the remainder of what the commission says is admitted toy the great majority to toe just. ,

The Times; the Morning -Post, and the Daily Express all draw attention to the disclosure of the extend to which the ‘British market has been depressed by the dumping toy oversea dairying countries other tlmn Newk Zoateftel; though at the same time the Times, while agreeing that Britain’s international trade position will heed to he reconsidered when the Imperial discussions take place in London next rear, is strictly non-committal towards he commission’a recommendations. j ... ■’vA ’!8” f- , “ IMPLICATIONS OF ELLIOTISM ’ ’

The Financial News., emphasises the “unpalatable implications ,of Elliotism’.’ as it affects Britain’s food sup--lies from overseas, the further development of Dominion trade, and the security of Imperial investments. The Manchester Guardian does the same. The Liverpool Journal of (Commerce, quoting ou this point the recent remarks of Sir James Parr, the New Zea.and High Commissioner, draws attention to the exceptional -trade onces which New Zealand is giving to British industry, and points out that “any considerable contraction in the .supplies of foodstuffs from our south’prn Dominions will be a,-further 'blow to our shipping interests, which have been sufficiently hit .by subsidised competition, and even .by our own fiscal experiments.' 1 MOTOR CARS FOR DAIRY PRODUCE

A warning almost simultaneous with this was uttered by Lord Essendon, chairman of the Shaw, .Savill and Albion Shipping Company, Avhen a ship of that line, R.M.S. Mataroa, left London with a cargo of 500 British motor vehicles for NeW Zealand. News hi the dispatch of this record single consignment, and of Lord Essendon’s appeal for the granting of special treatment to New Zealand in the matter of quotas, will have already reached the Dominion press, but since then this latest instance of the fruits of Imperial reciprocity has had a sequel in the publication in the British press of a letter from the three members of Parliament tin. whose constituencies the greater num : her of the motor vehicles in question were manufactured —Major L. Beaumont.. Thomas (King’s Norton, Birmingham), Captain W. F. Strickland (Coventry), and Mr. W. G, D, Hutchison (Romford). Tins, letter, to which newspapers m motor manufacturing areas gave particular prominence, says that, largely as a result of the increased tariff preferences granted by New Zealand to British cars, the United Kingdom’s share in the Dominion’s motor trade has risen since 1929 from IS per cent, to 78 per cent., and that for the first nine months of 1934 the value of. New Zealand’s imports of British cars has .increased by £218,000, or 145 per cant; “Here then,” . they conclude, “is surely an outstanding example of the value of Empire markets —an example which lends weight to the claims .of New Zealand primary producers, for continued favored treatment in this market.... It should also act. as an inducement to those who now thoughtlessly buy foreign dairy products to insist in future Upon New Zealand butter and cheese.”

FOREIGN AGREEMENTS CONDEMNED ■ - ■ ■Sir Henry... Page Croft, chairman .of the Empire Industries Association, has again pleaded strongly and urgently for an extension of trade with the Dominions. In a recent press interview, he declared that for the first nine months of this year exports of British manufactures to Empire countries totalled £112,510,000, or £1,740,000 more than the total to all foreign countries combined.

“These figures,’’ he remarks, “present an unchallengable case for continuing our present preferential treatment of Empire foodstuffs. , We must also refrain from hindering the progress of the Empire countries by making hastily conceived trade agreements with foreign countries.”

The New Zealand Dairy Produce Board supplemented Sir 'Henry Page Croft’s statement with (i circular to the press showing that New Zealand, in the period he mentions, has. increased her purchases of British manufactures by £1,171,000, or 21 per cent., the principal increases being in motor vehicles, iron and steel goods, and textiles. LANCASHIRE CAMPAIGN OPENS

Tho preferential treatment given by New Zealand to British textile goods is, by the way, being uspd as an effective argument by the Dairy Produce Board in its sales campaigns in Yorkshire and Lancashire. The “drive” it had organised in Leeds and Bradford is now drawing to an end, and it is worth noting that entries for ito grocers’ window display competitions number 100 in each city. Yesterday the board opened a campaign in Manchester, and there it is not failing to emphasise that New Zealand makes a return for the free entry for her dairy and other produce into the United Kingdom by admitting many kinds of British goods, including Lancashire textiles, duty free and imposing higher duties on .rival foreign products.