The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1938 NEW ZEALAND AND THE CITY OF LONDON

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21090, 16 July 1938, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1938 NEW ZEALAND AND THE CITY OF LONDON

Although the Prime Minister is correct in saying Hint the importation of foreign motor cars had not resulted in the depletion of New Zealand's sterling exchange in London, as claimed by the London critics, Hie official reply issued from Wellington dealing with the criticism voiced bv London's financial journals, says much that should not have been said and leaves much unsaid. It moreover savours of Parly wrangling for the Prime Minister to suggest that every word of criticism coming from financial circles in London is designed to put the Labour Government in a false position. Financial interests in the Homeland, as the Prime Minister himself has so often insisted, are concerned with the pounds shillings and pence aspect of New Zealand s status in the City of London. No idle talk will dispose of the conclusions drawn from a careful study of the statistics representing New Zealand’s trading relations with the Homeland. For example ?7ie Sew Zealand Official Year Book for 1938 shows in the statistics presented there that in the year under review, the United Kingdom imported goods from New Zealand that were valued in New Zealand currency at £15,492,000, while New Zealand’s imports from the United Kingdom were valued at £22,078,958. In other words, the adverse balance was £23,414,000 (New Zealand currency) in the year's trading relations with the United Kingdom, while, every other country within the classification of British countries enjoyed a favourable balance in its trading with New Zealand! In effect, the statistics set out in the latest issue of The Sew Zealand Official Year Book permit of one conclusion, namely that New Zealand sells a, large proportion of its exportable products in i|ie United Kingdom, and in a single year expended marly six millions of British funds in the purchase of goods in other British countries. From Canada, Australia, India and Ceylon, New Zealand purchases millions (d pounds worth of goods in excess of Hie purchases those countries make in New Zealand. It is moreover worthy of note that in the first four months of this year (from .January 1 to April 30) the adverse balance in the United Kingdom's trading with New Zealand, amounted to £11,259,664 (in New Zealand currency). All Hie talk of two-way trade between the United Kingdom and New Zealand in face of these figures does not. impress City circles in the Homeland. The London critics know that New Zealand's adverse trade balance with Canada, Australia, and the United States is being met from the proceeds of the sale of New Zealand’s products in the United Kingdom. For instance City circles in London know that New Zealand cannot purchase foreign motor ears without drawing upon Hie sterling credits in London, because New Zealand persists in purchasing more goods from Hie United States than the American Republic purchases in this country. The City critics know, too, that if New Zealand purchased in four months nearly two million bushels of wheat, in Australia at a cost of £465,000, the Dominion, because of its very big adverse trading balance with Australia, has no way of paying for Australian wheat except by drawing on the sterling balance in London. The City of London knows that New Zealand’s excess of exports last year represented something like fourteen millions, compared with three millions at April 30 this year; moreover, expenditure on all sides is going up rapidly in New Zealand, while price levels in countries which purchase New Zealand’s products are displaying a downward tendency. It is these facts and factors and not mere political talk that is turning London’s attention to a critical examination of New Zealand’s economic stability. THE N|'IEDS GF TECHNICAL EDUCATION. AHiough the Board of Managers of the Timaru Technical College have reason to feel disappointed that the Timaru Borough Council does not feel disposed to continue the custom of the contribution of £59 to the finances of the College, it ought to be said that the very fact that the managers in control of the institution providing technical education have to look to outside bodies to contribute to their finances, would seem to indicate the unsatisfactory position occupied by technical education in New Zealand. The decision of the Timaru Borough Council should focus attention on the urgent need of a changed attitude of the Department of Education to the legitimate claims of technical education to more general financial support. The Minister of Education, speaking in the House of Representatives on Tuesday declared that the expansion of the milk in schools programme was not in any way being restricted by lack of finance. In the realms of education, both in rebuilding programmes and in the general equipment of schools, money has been provided with almost a lavish hand. Hence the time is opportune for the technical school authorities to make their voices heard in the demands they ought to present to the Minister and the Department of Education for a more generous financial policy in relation to this highly important division of the national system of education. SAND HARDENING INTG CONCRETE. Demonstrating China’s determination to fight Hie war to a finish, the Peoples’ Conference in Hankow again pledged tjie people of China to struggle on. But can a conference speak for China? What do the authorities say? “More important than the incidents and possibilities of the war,” suggests The Times, “is the evidence given by its course that the Japanese militarists, to use a colloquialism, ‘have bitten off more than they can chew? They have won a prodigious number of victories; they have ruined great cities; and ravaged wide areas, but they have neither destroyed the Chinese armies nor shaken the determination of their commanded-in-chief. Moreover, the Japanese conquerors have failed to conciliate the inhabitants of the districts which they have invaded. Missionaries with years of experience in China as the guide to'their conclusions insist that Japan in attacking China has seriously miscalculated the consequences of her action. It is admitted that China

has suffered serious territorial, material and physical losses, but the first result of Japan’s invasion has been to unify China. It is recalled that Anatole France once said that “China will begin to exist when the Chinese know there is a China.” Can it be said then that Japan has stabbed China’s national consciousness to activity? The Chinese philosophers themselves say and this seems to reflect the cheers of the Peoples’ Conference now sitting at Hankow that Sun Yat Sen’s “plate of sand” is hardening into concrete—the old Chinese civilisation is hardening into new life! The evidence of the unification of the Chinese people in face of a common enemy is seen in the determined tight now being waged.