THE BRITISH FAIR

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 146, 17 January 1933, Page 6

THE BRITISH FAIR

OTTAWA’S INFLUENCE EFFECT OnToREIGNERS POSITION OF DOMINIONS (By SIR GILBERT C. VYLE, one of Great Britain’s industrial advisers to the Imperial Economic Conference.) * § {| London, Nov. 30. —We were on the threshold of Ottawa when this year’s British Industries Fair opened. The moment was one of drama because, although many of us had already a shrewd notion of Ottawa’s, effect upon the nations who are our customers, (here were others who doubted. ' Would the foreign buyers shun the j Fair? r. They overwhelmed it. The throng pf them arriving from overseas was more than twice the size of that which came in 1931.

t Today we have crossed the .threshold. The Ottawa agreements are the •world’s property: and he would be a doubter indeed who could persuade himself that next February’s British Industries Fair would not be the better for them. How to Balance Trade The Continent is queuing up. Already sixteen European countries are , giving their buyers specials concessions to come to Britain tor the occasion. And why? Schwab, the steel magnate, has estimated that the agreements means to countries outside the Empire a trade loss of between 39 and 40 million pounds a j year. '

The Continent grows a trifle scared. They are realising over there Britain’s enormous buying power and fear they are going to lose some of the trade which they have had in the past. But they, know that they will not lose it. We expressly declared at Ottawa that we were prepared to consider preferential and reciprocal trade with any country outside the Empire on terms perhaps not quite as good as those given within the Empire, yet considerably better than they would be if no trade agreement were reached. Imagine the national urge in each of the Continental peoples, producers everywhere getting together and impressing on their , Governments the need to encourage purchases from Britain before this great market of j theirs vanishes under their eyes. j The time has gone when they could without any control send us products of any kind and price without the slightest intention of taking payment for them in British goods and ser--1 vices on equally favourable terms. In the past we have never had the machinery to control such a situation, Ottawa has given us that machinery and the British Industries Pair is j performing an incalculable service | j in showing nationals of trading conn- j tries who in the past have missed j their opportunity how to use it in the future by coming here and helping to achieve a more just balance of trade between us and them. It was Ottawa that showed the way. What the Dominions Feared The Dominions themselves are al- j ready old friends of the Fair, both I as exhibitors and buyers. In Febru- j ary they will all be there again either under the auspices of the Empire Marketing Board or in the fine displays set up for themselves by Canada and India. As buyers, lam convinced, in view of the very important applications, that the Fair will be a memorable demonstration of how the Dominions may profit by the really colosal range of Britain’s production power.

I may explain that, while negotiating the new tariffs, one of the recurring difficulties which we had with the Dominions was their fear that the products which we wished to sell to them were' exactly those they them-

selves manufactured. If that were so, naturally they could not have bought from us without putting out of' work certain of their own people now engaged in making such products. I need not say that in fact we were \ under no illusion on the question. We realised clearly that, where a Dominion could produce a stock line ds cheaply as we could, it would be the proper thing for it to carry out its own production.

On the other hand, if variety of production were the aim, a special line for the Dominion to manufacture might very well be a bread and butter line for a firm at home, producing in large quantities. Here we felt that it was better for everybody that Britain should manufacture efficiently in. large quantities than that a Dominion should manufacture inefficiently in small quantities. In this way the people of the Dominion themselves would be able to buy a special line more cheaply from Britain and increase their purchasing power to that extent, sb enabling them to buy either more goods manufactured in then’ own Dominion or more from Great Britain, thus allowing Great Britain in turn to buy more from the Dominions. Salesmen as Statesmen's Allies A textile mill in Canada might be able to produce cloth for suitings as good in every way, including price, as

those to be bought from Great Britain. But men are like women, in that all of them do not want to be dresed in the same pattern of a fabric, like a row of policemen. They prefer a change. But the Canadian mill which could efficiently turn out substantial quantities of a stock fabric would become inefficient when meeting small demands for special patterns; and the Canadian people would be paying prices out of all proportion to those asked for a supply from Britain. Clearly, it would be foolish to attempt to compete with the vast range of patterns which we would be to send out to them from Britain. We,

on our part, admit that they can make the stock lines as efliicently as we can; they on their side grant that the making of special lines is our heritage and our business. The Fair is Britain’s shop window for the display of all such out of the way things; and I -would ask those who come from the Dominions, or who send their agents to the Fair, to look out for Britain’s special lines. And meanwhile let the British manufacturer be on the alert in anticipation of the visitors who will be arriving at Olympia, the White City and Castle Bromwich. Products outside the stdck range carry so much higher a rate of profit that an intensive study of the subject will pay him well, and, if he will con the Ottawa schedules, he will discover just which lines have now an improved chance overseas. Let him give prominence to them at the Fair, and let him encourage the people on his stand to study the schedules, too, and thus be able to clinch sales with definite knowledge of landed costs under the new -Arrangement. If the salesmen of Britain back up the statesmen of Britain, the alliance cannot fail to pull us through.