Trade With Japan

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21448, 12 September 1939, Page 6

Trade With Japan

IN the past seven years there have been remarkable fluctuations in the Dominion’s trade with Japan whi-h can be accounted for largely by the extent lo which Japan was a buyer of New Zealand wool. In 1932 the Dominion’s exports to Japan totalled £23(1,7!)!) and the imports from Japan were £-I7s,IM)U. Ip to ID.'tti the highest value of exports lo Japan was £S5t;,0()() in 193-1. There was a leap lo £1.551.0011 in 1936 and a still more remarkable advance to £3,131,000 in the following year. But last year Japan did not require so much wool, the result being that the exports slumped to £502,700. Tn four out of the seven years from 1032 to 1038 New Zealand’s imports from Japan exceeded exports by fairly substantial margins, but the balance of £1,500,000 in the Dominion's favour in 1037 reduced the gap over the span of seven years to approximately £lOO,OOO, which is quite satisfactory. Events in Europe will decide the direction of the Dominion’s overseas markets for the immediate future, but there can be no doubt: that a trading relationship which lias been so satisfactory in its outcome as that between Hie Dominion and Japan will be continued as circumstances allow. It is pleasant also to think that comment made by the winner of an essay competition conducted by the Association of Far Eastern Affairs fpr Japanese residents of Australia applies equally well to the Dominion as to the Commonwealth. The write)', Mr Kijii'o Miyake, said: “Japan has no intention of chipping any territory from China; still less has Japan dreamed of such an adventure as encroaching on the territories of Australia. Insofar as Hie suggestion so often heard, that Japan has territorial ambitions in Australia, is concerned, it should he dismissed as a fabrication conceived in ignorance and given birth in malice and uneliaritableness. Il is not territories but freer access to raw materials and a free)' market for her exports that Japan wants.”