VOICE OF THE PRESS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20077, 6 April 1935, Page 9

VOICE OF THE PRESS

NEW ZEALAND OPINIONS The W 7 ool Market The last Auckland wool sale of the season, produced a tone that would . have been even more welcome earlier in the series. There was a firming of prices, though the rise on previous values was not great. Com- ■ petition, however, was keen, and a very sound percentage of the ’ offering was disposed of at the auction. Such circumstances justify the woolgrower in saying farewell to , the 1934-35 realisation season more . hopefully than seemed possible a little while ago. It is true that better prices in the immediate past would have been l much more practical value than . hopes for the future: but since the positive indication of the Auckland sale is reinforced by reports of a sound stock position, those hopes can per- ! haps be accepted as some consolation, however small, for what the season has 1 failed to produce.—“ New Zealand Herr aid.” Vice-Regal Advice In these southern Dominions and in Britain the cry of “cutting the painter,” so frequently heard at one time, has quite gone out of date, and everyone 1 will endorse his Excellency’s appeal that there should be perfect frankness between the Motherland and her separate and several self-governing Dominions, and a determination to let no commercial huckstering destroy their sense of fraternal affection and fraternal interdependence. One thing stressed by Lord Bledisloe, of paramount importance when the present conditions in markets abroad are considered, ; which it is to be hoped will be taken seriously to heart, is the necessity of achieving and maintaining a high standard of excellence in our primary products for export. His Excellency has emphasised this point of “damnable Alteration.” He is an impartial observer, having the good of the Dominion at heart, and anxious to see its producers avoid what might be a serious embarrassment to its marketing operations.—“ Evening Star,” Dunedin. Farmers’ Finance There is no question about the sincerity of the intention of the Rural Mortgages Final Adjustment Bill to afford relief to deserving farmers. Whether the machinery it provides for separating the deserving from the undeserving will work satisfactorily remains to be seen, and the first impression is that it is over-elaborate. The main question the Government has to answer is whether the interference with creditors’ rights in endeavouring to retain equity in his land for a hardworking farmer whose misfortune is due to circumstances beyond his control will turn the stream of investment money toward rural securities, or will the new policy create even greater distrust of those securities than exists at present For upon the attractiveness of a security depends the cheapness of the money invested therein, and if legislation diminishes that attractiveness the prospect of cheap money and lessened burdens for the farmer will be further off than ever. Before a reply to that question can be attempted, however, a considerably closer study of the Bill is necessary than is possible at present.—“Taranaki Daily News.” New f Markets Whatever may be the outcome of the discussions with the British Government in regard to our export problems there w’ill still remain for business enterprise in this country the increasingly important question of finding new markets. The future of the Dominion depends to a large extent on the expansion of its primary production. If with a population of a million and a half we already are having difficulties about the profitable disposal of our exports in Great Britain it is obvious that these difficulties will tend to increase as the rural population and its output grow. In a satement in the Legislative Council on the subject of the assistance to be given by the Government to fruitgrowers to develop their export trade, the Minister of Industries and Commerce uttered a timely reminder that the question of finding new markets would have to be faced. He had no complaint, he said, about the increased production of fruit in New Zealand, but he thought it was reasonable to complain that more markets had not been developed in the past. This remark is capable of * wider application. Thus far this country has been content to look to the Mother Country as practically an assured market for its export products. The idea of looking elsewhere has occurred, but has not been exploited because there has been no pressing need. But if the quality of the goods is superior they hould sell anywhere if pushed with business initiative and energy. There is undoubtedly a call for these attributes of successful merchandising.—“ The Dominion.”