DOMINION EXPORT FIGURES

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 7

DOMINION EXPORT FIGURES

REPLY BY MR. W. GOODFELLOW. OPPONENT NOT YET SATISFIED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Invercargill, Feb. 9. The statements, accompanied by a £25 challenge, of Mr. J. T. Spears, vicepresident of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association, concerning the figures of New Zealand’s primary produce exports to England given by Mr. W. Goodfellow in an address recently were referred to Mr. Goodfellow, who was at Bluff last night. Mr. Goodfellow reiterated that his figures were correct and were published in a London financial paper, The Statist, on November 18, 1933. The figures were quoted as United Kingdom imports and expoi-ts for the first nine months of 1933, and obviously would not correspond with exports and imports of similar period for New Zealand.

Mr. Goodfellow, to amplify his statement, quoted the following figures for nine months of the last three years:— Imports into United Kingdom from New Zealand: 1931, £31,464,000; 1932, £31,535,000; 1933, £31,409,000. Exports to New Zealand from United Kingdom: 1931, £B,527,000; 1932, £7,638,000; 1933, £6,970,000. Mr. Goodfellow further emphasised that figures published in The Statist were invariably correct and past experience had proved that they were much more reliable than the statements issued by the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association.

Mr. Spears declares his challenge to Mr. Goodfellow is still open says a Wellington message. Mr. Spears says it is correct that Mr. Goodfellow’s figures appeared in the Statist. But the figures were given by Mr. Goodfellow as the value of New Zealand’s sales of primary produce to Great Britain. Actually they represented the value of New Zealand produce, plus freight, insurance, landing charges, buyers’ commissions and profit, and included even the whole of our wool and other produce, which was merely transhipped at London en route for the Continent.