THE Wairarapa Age FRIDAY, JULY MARKETING POLICY.

Wairarapa Age, 31 July 1936, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age FRIDAY, JULY MARKETING POLICY.

Nothing is of greater immediate importance to this country than its trade relations with Britain, and corresponding interest attaches to the discussions with representatives of the British Government in which the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) is to engage when he goes to Ltondo-n early next year. Speaking on this subject in Wellington on Wednesday, Mr. Nash said, as he is reported:— It was the intention of the New Zealand delegation to set out that the Dominion from its resources could produce certain goods, and to ask that as far as practicable the Dominion should have the right to market those goods so that the people of Britain could gain access’ to them. New Zealand in turn would take from Britain goods that would approximate the value of the products taken from her. He was aware that there were difficulties in putting this into effect, but he knew of no other way by which the best possible return could be obtained. It must be hoped that this is only a very cursory and incomplete outline of the plans with which the Minister of Finance is going to London. Taking account of the heavy debt, shipping and other payments she makes annually to Britain, and of imports that cannot well be obtained elsewhere than from foreign countries, and not forgetting the urgent necessity she is under of expanding her own manufacturing industries, it is clear that New Zealand cannot offer to do much more than is doing now in the way of taking goods from the Mother Country. There is no possible question of New Zealand buying from Britain goods approximating the value of the products she sells to Britain. New Zealand produce to the value of £8,000,000 sterling (ten millions in New Zealand currency) has to be exported annually to Britain to meet charges on our national and local body debt. Something like half as much again is needed to meet shipping and other charges due to Britain. It may be possible to obtain from Britain a proportion of the imports now obtained from foreign r.nunt.riflS hllf. sn for no holonna nf

trade with the Mother Country is concerned, we are to-day in almost as good a bargaining position as we can ever hope to occupy. We admit British goods far more freely than any other Dominion and buy from Britain, per head of population, more than three times as much as Australia and between four and five times as much as Canada. One of the most hopeful methods of improving on the existing state of affairs was mentioned by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) the other day in an interview. He said in brief that when Britain began investing capital in the Dominions she would establish surer foundations for Inter-Empire preferential trade and might open the way to immigration. Mr. Savage presumably had in mind the investment of British capital in the development of industries in the Dominions, as distinct from the raising of loans by the Dominions in London.

This opens up undoubted possibilities. We have in New Zealand, for example, both undeveloped and developed re-sources—hydro-electric power taking a prominent place in the latter category —in which British capital might be invested with great advantage to its owners and to the people of the Dominion. More certainly might be accomplished on these lines than by seeking merely to strengthen our position on the British market by offering to attempt to take more British goods.