South Canterbury Times WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1898.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2368, 28 December 1898, Page 2

South Canterbury Times WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1898.

We publish to-day an article from the Manchester Evening Chronicle on, the question of direct trade between Australasia and Manchester via the Canal. It states that gMr Pease, of McKerrow and Pease, colonial agents and general produce dealers, of Manchester, had induced some members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to recommend the directors of the Chamber to set up a committee to open up communications with responsible bodies in the colonies, and make inquiries as to the objects of possible direct trade with the colonies. Mr Pease will have done good service to Australasia if histguggestion is adopted, for if it results only in an increase of knowledge of the colonies on the part of Manchester merchants, that would be a valuable result. Mr Pease, who knows both the colonies and Manchester, says he can make no definite suggestions. This is rather disheartening, for if a man who knows both sides of the gap between cannot tell how that gap is to be bridged, who is likely to be able to so P He points out that the north of Jilngland is both a larger supplier of goods to Australasia, and a large consumer of Australasian prod uce, and that sound commercial principles indicate that manufactures and produce should be exchanged by the most direct route. He makes a rather curious confession of ignorance that Manchester people do not know what the colonies require; yet they ha?e been supplying the colonies with many important lines of manufactures. The real obstacle to the development of direct trade with Manchester, we should say, is the fact that an established course of trade through London, and the vested interests thereby created, are against it. The colonies can do little or nothing to remove this obstacle ; the necessary action must be taken on the spot by those who are concerned in the colonial trade, and the most important action required seems to be to induce the owners of shipping trading to the colonies to make Manchester a port of call or an alternative terminal port. This can only be done by co-operation amongst importers and exporters, who must be willing to make ,some sacrifices at the outset, to prove to the ship-owners that there is business worth going to Manchester for. And the bankers of Manchester must acquire a knowledge of colonial merchants and of the value of their signatures—a factor in the movement which is perhaps of more importance than everything else put together. •