"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1925. DANGER OF OVER IMPORTING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 50, 22 December 1925, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1925. DANGER OF OVER IMPORTING.

THE latest trade. figures when read in conjunction with /the reports of falliiijor prices for wool and a butter slump at Home give some cause for further warnings regarding the dangers of over importation. It is still true that our exports' exceed our imports by well over £3,000,000. For the 12 months ended October.. 1925. the excess was nearly £3,500,000, and for the 10 months of this year for which the figures ape available it is £3,169,769. . But the difference between the exports for the calender year 1924 and for the 12 months ended October, 1925, was £2,1G5j639, while the difference in the imports for those two periods was £2,759,749, or well over half a million more; and it has to be remembered that this relatively greater increase of imports was registered against higher prices for our exports than will rule for the year lying \ ahead of us. What the drop m prices will amount to in the aggregate no one knows, but some think it will be £8,000,000 or £10,000,000, and since it is not likely that there will be a corresponding drop in the things we have to buy, it is obvious that a drop .of even half this amount will be very embarrasing if we do not restrict the volume of our buying. In any case a margin of £3,500,000' on the right side is not nearly enough on a trading ex/'hance of something over £100.000.000. This is a clear £500,000 less than our balance 12 months ago on a substantially smaller volume of trade, which . did not include some of the best prices obtained

for many years for our most: valuable exports. In his address at the Bank of New Zealand meeting the other day, Sir George Elliot thought it superfluous to repeat the almost sterofcyped note ox warning usually icoming from that quarter in such J occasions, but this chief reason for the omission was that "there are many signs of times which may easily be read that economy will be forced on the nubile and on local bodies whether they liktit or not." While there is no cause for any panic, it is plain' that we are not going to get a? much, or nearly as much, for our exports this year as last, and it nearly always happens in :uch cases that those who wili feel the consequences most are the last to begin to think oi them. The facts are plain eiijugh to-day; the most disturb ing feature of the case is the Failure, of the community to realise what is happening be-tween-'the country's exuorts and mi' imports.