THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1907. COMMERCIAL METHODS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8349, 4 February 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1907. COMMERCIAL METHODS.

The President of the British Board of Trade (Mr D. Lloyd-George) has announced a much-needed reorganisation of its Commercial Intelligence Branch, including the better education of Consuls and a searching investigation into the industries of foreign countries, especially Germany.' He claims that the statistics to be compiled will reveal Britain's true commercial position and show whether she is going forward or backward; and he admits that if the facts smash his Freetrade theories the sooner they are obtained the better. This action by the important State Department over which Mr Lloyd-George presides is a step in the right direction and will do much to bring British trade intelligence to the higher level of her great commercial rivals. The absence of reliable statistics is most publicly exhibited in the wrangling over the fiscal issue, both sides claiming to show from official figures the soundness of their respective contentions. But the antiquated system of the Board of Trade is more keenly felt in the general inferiority and belatedness of the information supplied to British manufacturers and merchants. Only very recently has it been decided to issue the private and timely official reports which have long been a feature of American and German trade, and it has long been notorious that the American Consuls in particular were far better commercial intelligence agents than their British colleagues. So marked has been this

superiority that reputable British travellers have frequently stated in their books and correspondence that they found American Consuls in all parts of the world readier and better informants than the British, even to British subjects. The British Board of Trade has issued monthly an official journal containing a certain amount of commercial information including calls for tenders in forejgn countries, openings for trade in the colonies and elsewhere, tariff changes, and so forth. This has been sold at one penny and is marked by the absence of cabled information and by the spreading broadcast of news df "openings" which every alert country gives to its own industries first. Mr LloydGeorge is altering this journal very considerably. With the New Year its price was raised to threepence and its character improved, while the "openings" were to be supplied privately to British firms as above indicated. In connection with the Commerical Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade, the Governments of India, Canada, Cape of Good Hope, Queensland, i Transvaal, and Orange River Colony have opened trade inquiry offices; these are situated in the same building and are assisted as far as possible by the Board of Trade officials.