CHALLENGE ISSUED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 34, 9 February 1934, Page 5

CHALLENGE ISSUED

MR. GOODFELLOW’S FIGURES MANUFACTURERS’ ANALYSIS ( Per Press /issoriation. J WELLINGTON, Feb. 8. A £25 challenge tu Mr. Goodfellow was issued to-day by Mr. J. T. Spears, vice-president of the New Zealand Manufacturers ’ Federation. Mr. bpears declared that ho would donate £25 to tho funds of the Reciprocal Trade Association if Mr. Goodfellow could substantiate figures quoted by him at a recent meeting in Christchurch. Mr. Goodfellow had •stated that during the first nine months of 1933 New Zealand’s sales of primary produce to Great Britain amounted to £31,500,000. The actual amount was £26,730,000 (including exchange), ns shown in the official abstract of statistics for October, 1933. Even this figure included over £3,000,000 worth of produce shipped merely via London to foreign countries, so that the true figure of sales to Britain herself during that period was only approximately £23,730,000 (New Zealand currency), or approximately £.19,000,000 (Sterling). Yet Mr. Goodfellow had deliberately stated that the amount was £31,500,000. It was evident that what Mr. Goodfellow had quoted was the United Kingdom valuation, which included freight, insurance, landing charges, and buyers’ commission, all payable to England herself, and certainly not to be included in the amount of New Zealand’s “sales ol primary produce to Great Britain.’ Freight alone accounted for over £6,000,000 (Now Zealand currency). Mr. Goodfellow’s figure included also the whole of the wool and other produce transhipped at London en route for the Continent. Such a gross distortion of fact, said Mr. Spears, wn' probably unparalleled in the history of a public controversy in New Zealand and showed the lengths to which propagandists of certain interests wore prepared to go. MR. GOODFELLOW'S REPLY. [ Per Press Association. ] INVERCARGILL, Feb. 8. Mr. Spears’ statements were referred to Mr. Goodfellow, who was at Bluff tonight. Mr. Goodfellow reiterated that his figures were quite correct and were published in a London financial paper, The Statist, on November .18, J 933. The figures were quoted as Uniter! Kingdom imports and exports for the first nine months of 1933, and obviously would not correspond with the exports and imports of a similar period for New Zealand.

Mr. Goodfellow, to amplify his statement, quoted the following figures for nine months of the last three vars: Imports into United Kingdom from New Zealand, 1931, £31,464,000; 1932, £31,535,000; 1933, £31,409,000. Erports to New Zealand from United Kingdom, £8,527,000, £7,638,000 and £6,970,000.

Mr Goodfellow further emphasised that the figures published in The Statist were invariably correct, and past experience had proved that they were much more reliable than the statements issued by the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association.