IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14133, 12 February 1910, Page 3

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.

(To■:tKii'!.eSito a, &ir.—-In ; your, editorial dealing-with?:'.'-tlie; above ■ there■; are some ■ iteihs‘,'->i?ItllhSl? winch I cannot otic with you, and with’’ ?• your permission will allude to them. / ; ln the first.place you allude to your ” ‘ statement, that o or 10 millions brought into the country must -be classed, ports, because it does not conic in tho shape of sovereigns, but in the shape , Of .merchandise-of some-sort; hiiNotliing’-itS; of the sort. I have had the use of inuey sent litre horn the Old Lund, I /Certainly did not get it in tho shape of - sovei oigns, . and il. am aequallyiTceztKlnV’.fW,.:: I .did not got it las rchatidiaie >■ got it in- .the .shape of a token that. . passed for the equivalent of so many sovereigns, and if I had declined it in that shape, and demanded 'from tho bank its equal in sovereigns they would l ha\o, 1 have no doubt, given it in that lorni, so that I ifail to see your argilmen 4 - iiiat cash innso be classed as an ordinal/ import. Anything ' brought -■into the country ,is an import, even a ■■■ - .man, but ho is not classed under tho ? '.heading ’ of a 'dealing .with this groat question we -must not lose sight of the fact that m> hard and fast mlo can bo iriade to' apply equally: to any_ tvvo:.cmintrfesi’.Mpi; For instance, England is a manufacturing and industrial country, anu they must ■ import-, largely the raw greath roi then own nso, tho balance . in their great s industrial concerns, ’ , whose products me exported, thns-pro-viding the pro!its u inch enable Eng-'. land to _ bo one of the biggest money l ..-; lenders in the,world. Now; we in New 1 ' - Zealand are not,:.,by anv means in'the same money lenders. We - have ” ‘ first to be large exporters..of;the .-raw-mac ’ products of the and pay for the manufactured: commodities that- tho great industriAl-commu-nities have to sell, us, therefore : it,"is. if:-: a only in proportion as we are able to find markets, by means of large exports • that wo are able to . pay for our im- - • ports. Now, for .one object-lesson. ,:Say ;nw next year we expected £3,000,000 loss •; value l : in wool/'etc., than- :thidyyeap/ii:f|;f what would be the cry? tVe should , boqr from one end of ;:the; j colony to the .other, why that . money was scared and,' every thing- in : aj;.bad..f'';j way,-but if it was. the other way. and tho values went up, and f2,000;;0.00 ,sia more came into the. country; in ono year, what would the result be? Any- - one’can give the answer; and the. 7 an- w .5; swer would prove that wo in New..,Zea- . land are prosperous only in proportion us our exports largely exceed our . im-- 7 ;;-;-: ports. Your space ,will - hot; permit' of ft 7 ,;'- my going into this question: as,.’Due ■> : would like, hut I .will content myself . . ■with examining the:concluding part; of,; - ..r your article, .Where it commences;:.t‘if ,if. on the contrary wo wore to pay. oh our ; debts abroad,” etc., etc. how, again,■ in answering that, I will, simplyconfine ■~; : v myself to New Zealand, and work tho. problem out from the way’l see things, if, tlieiefore, our experts next year went up pulhons, what would ;that-?:' mean ? : V.Tiy, that tho spending rand;:*i:;, buying powers ,of the country , would go Up accordingly. The* people would buy largely, and the merchant would have to import more arid;more; heavily;.®-: The Government .in its turn.ivould.reap the golden.'harvest, received by? means?’?? 7 ;, of the duties.; Ami supposing this state. - of affairs'was of sneli a ’mating kind ■ that v/o were enabled (that is the. Gov- ~? eminent) to pay oil our outside indebtness, and the millions now sent out of the country’; for interest could ,bo kept in it, and spent in opening up our back country, and still lurthcr ini creasing our earning and exporting {lower, what a .country we -would have m New Zealand. In., conclusion?? jimt?;i f ?. reverse the picture, andllimkgine,'; that? our exports were some millions less than our imports. Now-; what would happen? V.Tiy .simply that .situated as we are, all our wealth in the soil , and what it produces,, it would only be a mutter ol short duration, and we could not import, .for tho very simple reason that wo were not selling or V? ■ earning sufficient to buy: our comniddi?-, ?<i j ties. So far us New Zealand is con- ~ corned, I hope the day is lar distant when our exports do not in fairly largo 7 way exceed our imports, as ihc surplus thus earned can always bo put to furfher roprodnetiyehess,', and in fur- ;-: thor increasing the producing [lower of

our soil. 1 am, etc., ' •’ - W.A.C. P.S.—I base the whole of my argument on fho assumption that a com- - mining is in on way different from ais individnal, and if I as ali:individual'had;, ; r my imports in the way of spending" habitually grca tor than my: ox porta or ’ earnings, wJnrt is sooner or later going’: •to happen? Tn tins individual, hank- ,■ ruptcy, and in tho community its,■ecpiK }‘t valent, usually known in the commercial’iSi -, world by the term : stagnation. v ■■■,?■? '