EMPIRE EXHIBITION

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3429, 15 March 1938, Page 7

EMPIRE EXHIBITION

FILLIP TO WORLD TRADE NEW ZEALAND AND GLASGOW 7 . The supreme importance to Empire and world trade of the Empire Exhibition, which the King is to open at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, on May 3, is emphasised by Mr Harold M. Ford in an article in the Scottish Chambers of Commerce Empire Journal. Mr Ford, who is commercial manager of the Clyde Navigation Trust, visited New Zealand in 1929 on behalf of the Port of Glasgow, and has made extensive tours in the dominions to promote direct trade with the Clyde.

“Not since Wembley,” Mr Ford states, “will there have been presented to the millions- of people of these islands such a unique opportunity of being educated as to the great natural wealth of our dominions, colonies and dependencies overseas, and their immense value to the Mother Country as a source of supply of practically all our necessary food commodities and other primary products.

Primary Industries.

“It will also bring home tfro them all the enormous progress made in the development of the various dominion and colonial primary industries during the past 15 to 20 years. What is more, to those tens of thousands of visitors from overseas there will be presented a spectacle of '.exhibits probably unsurpassed in .any previous exhibition, not only (depicting almost every type of industrial and manufacturing activity throughout Britain, but placing before the eyes of the world a glowing (Object lesson as to what Britain represents as an industrial nation.”

Mr Ford regards iit as specially fitting that Glasgow should have been selected as the venue for such a demonstration of British and Empire greatness in the fr-ade and commei’ce of the modern world. Persistent efforts are being made in every direction to develop amd cement increased reciprocal trading relations between Scotland and t5aE lEmpire.

Vast Trade Increase.

“Ten years ago,'” Mr Ford declares, “those concerned with out Empire primary industries viewed London as the only representative market for 47,000,000 coisismßners in Great Britain. “Few were aware of the great potentialities of trade .presented by the facilities of markets, Glasgow’s port, and the traders operating among a population of some 6,000,000, or indeed similar (opportunities of development through the great markets and ports of Liverpool and Manchester to a further in the industrial Midlands and the North of England.” Indicating the progress made, hcstates that 10 years ago vessels from Australia and New Zealand trading I into Glasgow totalled 37, representing some 430,000 tan® iof shipping in and out of the port. This year Glasgow will have received from these two countries 96 vessels, representing an in and out tonnage totalling 1,035,000. Imports have risen fr-om about 62,000 tons to 180,000 tons. From Australia alone, against only .12 refrigerated vessels in 1927, to-day there are some 50 trading into the Clyde with another 33 from New Zealand. New Zealand has doubled her im- j ports of cheese into Scotland, almost i trebled her imports of meat, and sent : approximately five times the quantity ■ of butter, totalling a further 85,000 : tons of refrigerated commodities. j “Contrary to popular belief,” Mr : Ford declares, “these increases are not jj so much the result of transferring old- : established trade from London as the : building up of tra.de in Scotland, ■ thereby allowing Empire primary in- : dustries to decentralise their market- ■ ing, and, with increased demands, go : ahead with their development and pro- \ duction.” :