EMPIRE TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19269, 10 March 1937, Page 14

EMPIRE TRADE

BEITISH MINISTER’S VIEW

THE DOMINION’S PART

HON. W. NASH’S COMMENT

(From a Special Correspondent) LONDON, February, 10. ■ The Hon. W. Nash, Minister oi Finance, was one of the principal guests at a dinner in London last evening given by the Royal Warrant Holders’ Association. He replied to the toast of “Imperial Trade and industry,” which was proposed by Captain Euan Wallace, Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade.

In the‘course of his speech Captain IV allace said that Empire trade was for the most part complementary and not competitive. To exchange the primary products from overseas for the manufactured goods of the mother country was a simple operation, ad vnntiigeous to all.

Some industrial development in Em pi re countries was bound lo coirie, he added, and provided it was not artificially promoted upon a noil-economic basis Britain would regard it not as a menace to her home industries but as a welcome step towards a higher standard of life and a consequent increased demand for her goods. In the main, however, the Empire overseas remained a producer of food and raw materials. The primary producers of the Empire would appreciate now much they owed to tne expansion oi industrial activity in Great Britain, which had led last vear lo an increase

of £<53,000,000 in the value of her im

ports of raw materials and foodstuffs, - of which .£36,000,000 represented additional purchases from the Empire. The United Kingdom bought fouriifths of the total exports of New Zealand. It must not lie thought that efforts to promote intcr-Impcriai trade implied any desire to curtail commercial relations with the rest of the world. - ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION In replying to the toast, Mr. Nash said he wished to emphasise hi.agreement, with Captain Wallace when the latter referred to “the cause oJ Imperial economic co-operation.” He would like to go further and say thui “Imperial economic co-operation,” should be a term full of meaning-—a. term signifying active and positive methods of co-operating on an economic basis. While the Empire was not a self-contained economic area, there ' was no doubt that more could be done in this direction by an active imperia, trade policy. That did not mean that trade would be taken away from countries outside the Empire. What lie was speaking of would be a net addition to the world’s trade. With organisation this could be done. He also agreed with Captain Wallace in that he felt, and his Government felt also, that any regulation oi trade should bo regulated expansion and not restriction. Ecstrictiijn could not bo defended where human needs went unsatisfied.

Captain Wallace, proceeded the Minister, hail mentioned that the United Kingdom took four-firths ol ! New Zealand's exports. This surely was an il lustration of the benefits of reciprocal trade, because the people of England received high quality New Zealand foodstuffs at reasonable prices, and the people of -New Zealand took in re turn the manufactured products oi Great Britain. Of the imports int< New Zealand of the class of goods manufactured in Britain considerably more than three-fifths were obtained from Britain. In respect of such good. British manufacturers enjoyed highei preferences that those accorded by any other Dominion, and were thus at forded every opportunity of enjoying an even greater proportion of tin trade. Ho would also add that New Zca land's exports to Britain and her im ports from Britain were carried ii

British ships, and New Zealand liar to export goods to Britain to pay lot this service. Similarly she had to c> port at least £IO,UUU,uoo worn oJ goods yearly to the United Kingdom to meet her current debt service. PROGRESS UNDER CONSTITUTIONALISM

, Mr. Nash then dealt with certain constitutional 'aspects of the British Empire and the progress that the Empire had made under what he called “constitutionalism, not revolution.’’ It had been by this method of constitutional development that advances had come in the British Empire. England had given the Empire capital for economic development and administrators for political development and democracy as a method of government. To-day England and the Empire were inter-dependent, and they illustrated what could be done by a combination of democratic government and econo inic co-operation.' Mr. Nash then gave a brief review of the trade between Great Britain and the rest- of the Empire in recent years, showing that progress continued to be made. Last year exports from Britain to the rest of the Empire rose from 47.99 per cent to 49.22 per cent of her world trade. Last year there was an increase of £52,000,000 over the 1932 figure in the exports of British goods to the whole of the Empire, while the increase to foreign countries in the same period was slightly lo'-s than half this amount, namely £25,000,000. This notwithstanding th trade treaties which Britain had mafic w't’i foreign nations. It was only, said Mr. Nash, by com parisons of this kind that they were able to estimate the potential'Dos o’ future Empire trade, and particularly the value to the mother-country of the overseas Dominions’ markets. These marioetfl had by rio means reache*" their limit. They would increase in proportion to the development that took place in those overseas countries, and this development, must bo rational and active Imperial economic cooperation. (Applause.)