NEW ZEALAND’S EXPORT MARKET

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 155, 3 July 1934, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND’S EXPORT MARKET

P’llE movement fur which Mr. Goodfellow and Mr. Russell spoke at the Council Chambers yesterday, has come into existence late in the day. The danger which has already been done to New Zealand’s standing with the United Kingdom is so deep that Major Elliot has little opposition to his policy of high protection for British agriculture. The United Kingdom is today New Zealand’s only market for her dairy produce, and there is no other market. Is there time yet to save the situation? There may be; it is worth trying. If nothing is done, then the prejudice which has grown up in England against New Zealand in consequence of the Government’s high exchange policy, will assist Major Elliot in his objective in imposing quotas on New Zealand dairying produce. The concern of the manufacturing interests in the New Zealand market has been definitely lessened, because New Zealand has broken faith. 'The Ottawa Conference was called for the purpose of bringing about a condition of freer trade within the Empire, the agreements signed at Ottawa were for the purpose of implementing the policy of freer Empire trade, but before the ink was dry on those agreements the high exchange policy which the Government adopted against the advice of the Finance Minister. the Treasury, and its own bankers, and all of the other bankers save one, cut right across the agreements which Mr. Coates himself had signed. Facts speak louder than words, and on the conduct of this Dominion is this Dominion judged. Public opinion within the Dominion is now shaping in the direction to which the Chronicle has consistently pointed since the exchange issue became a public one, and this journal welcomes and wishes the new organisation all the success which it undoubtedly deserves. Unless a successful attempt is made to retain the only export market available to the Dominion then, as was observed in this column on May 8, 1933, “there can be no choice for New Zealand but to cither reduce her standard of living or to reduce her total population.”