NEW ZEALAND TO-DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 19 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALAND TO-DAY

HER PROBLEMS DISCUSSED “NO SQUEALING” OVER ADVERSITY. A ROTARY ADDRESS. (Our London Correspondent.) London, January 25. The Speaker at the Eastbourne Rotary Club on January 23rd (Monday) was Mr. H. T. B. Drew, of the office of the High Commissioner for New Zealand, London, and his subject was “New Zealand—her present problems.” After briefly tracing the history and development of the Dominion from its discovery by Tasman in 1642, Mr. Drew said that New Zealand, like all British communities overseas, claimed equally with the people of Britain, a right to the Great British institutions—the Sovereign, her national institutions, memorials, and those great traditions of religious freedom, unfettered administration of the law, purity in politics, which had always been the basis of Britain’s greatness. He said there was no need to state that New Zealand was sharing in full degree in the present world stress. It was due entirely, in her case, to the failure of produce prices. In 1929, butter was fetching over 170 s per cwt.; to-day it was down to 80s. Cheese was round about 80s; to-day it was under 60s. Lamb was worth from 20s to 25s per carcase; to-day it was worth 10s to 12s 6d. The annual wool output was greater, but was Realising about half the figure of four years ago. “We rarely have had an adverse trade balance,” he added, “our imports have exceeded our exports only twice since the war, and then only by very small amounts. We have been careful and provident in these matters, and I might even say exemplary. Almost our entire exports are from the soil, from grazing, the products or sheep farming and dairying. We are the greatest dairy-export-ing country in the world, the third greatest wool-exporting country, and the greatest lamb exporting country, a fine record, you will admit for so small a country, and one so distant, from the centres of population. We were at the peak of our industrial endeavour when the world financial catclysm struck us.” Putting their profits and savings into their land farmers found their land down in actual value because of the fall in prices. Many had little ready money, and what should have been assets in the accrued value of the land by virtue of improvements they had. placed. upon it had failed to materialise. The fall in prices had wiped out the results of years of hard labour, the asset consisting of expensive top-dressing and improvement of pasture. Possessing little ready cash some small farmers found it almost impossible to carry on being the victims of their own enterprise and industry. Others able to make things do endeavoured by increasing output to build up their financial return to normal, satisfied to carry on by this additional effort even if they made no profit.

SHORTEN ED REVENUE. Meanwhile, with greatly shortened revenue, the Government had all the problems to face' that Britain had had to face. Budgets had to be balanced. This meant additional taxation and economy. The salaries of the public service underwent two severe reductions—lo per cent, and then 12J per cent —and this cut was extended generally throughout all classes of the community. Many social services had to be reduced, services which characterise young countries, and more particularly characterised New Zealand since her childhood days. Money was saved wherever it was possible. In this way, and with certain reserves existing and drawn upon, the budgets of the . past three years, if not actually balanced, were almost balanced. The country kept solvent, and interest commitments on loans in Britain had been met. The advice of Sir Otto Niemeyer was obtained and followed in adopting means to assist' our future course of financial procedure. A great misfortune was the earthquake in the Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay areas, for it meant further heavy and unexpected calls on the national exchequer. Unemployment naturally followed. There had been great endeavours to meet this crisis, both nationally and by the local authorities. The dole . system was not instituted. But money was made available for men who would give an equivalent of work. Camps in country areas were established, and men were employed on road, railway, farm and other work. Grants had been given to others to prospect for gold, and one result has been a hundred per cent increase in the gold exports—from £500,000 per annum to over £1,000,000. The manhood of the country, particularly of the young fellows, has been sustained by the feeling they had that they earned what the State gave them—that they were not paupers, that they were giving more than they received. Surely this was retaining in times of the greatest crisis one of our greatest national .assets—the self-respect of the young men, and keeping from the national life a spirit of under-dog and enforced (Applause) To pay for this employment of the unemployed, if one might use the term, a tax had been levied on all wages and salaries to augment other funds available.

New Zealand, sent Britain over £B,000,000 per annum for interest on development loans. She was also Britain’s greatest per capita customer, for manufactured goods. With reduced revenue she had not been able to purchase on her wanted scale, but, even so, over 50 per cent of her imports came from Britain, and nearly another 15 per cent from other parts of the Empire. No Other country could show this record of Empire trading. She was repaying her war commitments to Britain —not war loans which were raised locally, but sums incurred for shot and shell fired by her troops and for other war services—at more than £1 per capita per annum, a heavier annual commitment for the million and a half people than Britain’s debt payments to America. FOREIGN BUTTER. The produce she sent to Britain, chiefly dairy produce, lamb and mutton, honey, apples, was all of the highest quality, declared so by-Britain’s greatest medical research experts. He had with him the latest Medical Research Council report, for instance, on New Zealand butter. The experts that in Britain’s winter months New Zealand butter, straight from summer grasses, was more body-building, disease-resisting, and a better butter generally for consumption than the winter butter, with the animals stall-fed, of the Northern hemisphere countries. The sun on the grasses in New Zealand gave it essential vitamin qualities. Yet what did one find? Britain to-day was paying 25s per cwt. more for northern hemisphere, foreign butter, and until recently was paying 40s more, and to countries also with larger populations than New Zealand but which did not in return spend anything like as much money as New Zealand for British manufactures. This additional price would help New Zealand enormously, in her immediate difficulties. These foreign countries, also, had not the heavy overhead expenses of war-debt taxation. “Unfortunately also,” said Mr. Drew, “people who would help us by buying our commodities, cannot always be sure

they are getting them when they ask for them in the shops. If they could, it would give up a full return for the advertising of our products, and .enable those who would help us to give us their full measure of support.” “We are fighting hard,” he concluded. “Our farmers, with splendid courage, are producing more than ever before; we are not ‘squealing’; there is no evidence of any bitterness at price failures. Quite the contrary. New Zealand realises the outstanding difficulties of the mother country, as was shown recently in her

offer to forego her moritorium in rsgard to her war-debt to Britain, when you were called upon by America to pay up last year’s instalment of debt, even though, as I have indicated, it meant a proportionately greater payment than you had to make. ? . “This is the spirit of the Dominion, and, with our economic basic soundness, notwithstanding the present stress and difficulty, I think, when the turn of the tide comes, New Zealand will be one of the first countries to reach; firm ground again.” o