The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1913. OUR TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 287, 26 April 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1913. OUR TRADE.

The export and import returns for the year ending March 31, which have just been gazetted, establish a record for the Dominion, and afford interesting reading. Our export of produce shows an increase of some three and a half million pounds over that of the previous year, and over a million in excess of either of the two previous years. This result is due as much to the enhanced prices ruling as to the increase in quantity. Wool, our main item of. export, accounted for £8,065,045 last year; for the previous year the figures were £0,579,074. Butter and cheese are nearly a million pounds ahead of the figures of the year before, viz., £3,915,794, as against £3,073,528. Dairy produce now, for the first time, occupies second place in the list of our exports, displacing frozen meat from that position. A satisfactory feature of the increase in dairy produce is that it is due more to increase in quantity than to enhanced prices. Frozen meat brought £3,771,503 into the country last year, as against £3,309,346 the year before. In every other article of export—sheepskins, tallow, kauri gum, hemp, timber, etc.—an increase is shown. The only item that exhibits a decrease is gold, which was £1,305,217, compared with £1,747,877 the year before. This decrease, of course, is due to the labor troubles at Waihi. Whilst the export returns are so satisfactory, it cannot be said that the import returns give cause for congratulation. They are increasing at too great a rate for that, and are not leaving the margin to come and go upon that is necessary for the financial ease and buoyancy of the Dominion. The difference between the value of our exports and imports last year was but a million and a third. To put us in a comfortable position there should be a margin of between three and four million sterling. We are feeling the effects of heavy importation now, as we did in 1907-8 and 1908-9, when our imports almost equalled our exports, and the stringency will only be removed when we reduce our imports; in other words, when we live more within our means. This and the increase of our exports in every direction should be our aim. Then money will be easier, business better and times better all round. A comparison of exports with imports is interesting and instructive, and we give this for the past six years, omitting specie:

Exports. Imports. Year £ £ 1907-8 17.863,842 17,466,421 1908-9 16,767.818 16.313,759 1909-10 21.467.387 14,773,821 1910-11 21,497,187 17,385,066 1911-12 19,003,851 19,774,517 1912-13 22,643,265 21,309,688

It is worthy of note that our trade is now, for the first time in our history, over the £40,000,000 mark. For a million people to have a foreign trade of £44 per head is unique, and shows what a marvellous resiliancy a comparatively small country may possess. In the last ten years our oversea trade has risen from £24,825,322 to no less than £44,356,508. This is an advance of 78 per cent., whilst the increase in population has been 30 per cent. Our trade is therefore growing two and a half times as fast as our population, which clearly shows that the country as a whole must at heart be entirely sound and prosperous. Incidentally, it also shows, and conclusively shows, that the policy pursued by those at the legislative head of the State has, far from being inimical to the interests of the producer, as has been so consistently alleged in the past, been beneficial to those interests in a surprising degree. If the present Government can show equally good results it won't have done badly by the country and its most important element, its producers.