TRADE IN EUROPE BIG TASK TO RE-VITALISE WAR-WEARY LANDS

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 May 1947, Page 6

TRADE IN EUROPE BIG TASK TO RE-VITALISE WAR-WEARY LANDS

BRITAIN FEELING THE STRAIN (0.C.) Wellington, May 4. “Industrial Europe has been, and will be again, a market of major importance for those who have food and raw materials to sell. To-day unhappily, is is the wide gap between available .apply and minimum needs which alone prevents a more extensive sale of our products —and particularly od —to the suffering millions of crowded Europe.’’ This was said by Mr. G. W. Clinkard, secretary of Industries and Commerce in an address broadcast last night. Mr. Clinkard was formerly New Zealand Food Commissioner in London. “The years from 1935 to 1940 had their difficulties, but, by comparison with current conditions, they were years of plenty and happiness,” He continued. “I have had occasion to re-visit parts of Europe since wai ended—indeed by chance I was in Belgium on V.E. Day—and have had an opportunity of seeing and learning at first hand something of the conditions existing in the past few years. CONDITIONS CHANGED IN NEUTRAL COUNTRIES "There is still, of course, a marked difference between conditions in the one-time neutral countries particu larly. Sweden and Switzerland —and in the occupied lands of western Europe. Belgium, Holland and France have still to overcome the heavy handicap of physical'destruction and wide disorganisation of the means of production and distribution. Much has been done but the work will go on for many years and must remain a burden on the economy of those countries. Relatively little can be expected from reparations by Germany. Her problem of physical repair far exceeds anything elsewhere in any large area of western Europe. “German Invasion of Western Europe in the Spring of 1940 compelled my hurried transfer to England. “From June, 1940, until a few feeks ago, I acted in London as the United Kingdom Representative of the New Zealand Ministry of Supply. Those six years have been packed with opportunity to learn at first-hand something of tiie vast industrial and commercial activities carried on in the United Kingdom. My duty brought me in touch with manufacturing and trading operations covering an exceedingly wide range of goods. Our needs here in New Zealand have always been supplied, in large measure, from the United Kingdom and though in war-time supplies were aften reduced, or even exhausted, we have continued to draw many of our essential commodities from the Mother Country. But my work in London was not confined to securing supplies from Great Britain. London was the centre at which much of the work of co-ordination or combined planning of supply was done, and supplies from U.S.A., Africa, India or Australia were olten arranged through the “programmes’’ (as they were called) determined upon in London. I had the interesting job of representing New Zealand on the Boards and Contnittees which did that work, and my war-time visits to America and New Zealand helped, I hope, to make the work more effective. BRITISH ECONOMY "Unhappily, economic conditions in the United kingdom are by no means satisfactory, and the difficulties there are of major concern to us, -both as a buyer and as a seller in that great market. The two central troubles are shortage of labour and of fuel. Raw materials and machine capacity are- usually available and, if coal and manpower could.be provided, production of many lines could rapidly increase. Orders for the goods which Great Britain makes so well are embarrassingly plentiful. That is the short answer as a statement of Britain’s troubles, but the underlying causes call for a wider view of the position. Despite the losses of the earlier war and of the 19301935 depression, London, in 1939, was still the financial centre of the world and the United Kingdom was a leading creditor nation. She had, perhaps, four thousand million pounds of foreign investments bringing in a handsome yearly income from overseas. Shipping and financial services added another goodly sum to the total of her invisible exports —for which in return she received visible imports such as food and raw materials. Not all her foreign investments are gone and not ail her ships are sunk. She still provides £or many people, t'ne world over, banking and insurance services for which the world must pay; but her international position in the economic sense is sadly worsened. To buy the raw materials—cotton, wool, metals, rubber, oil, timber and dozens more—and the foods which she must have, she must pay—sooner or later—in goods of her own production. Borrowing from America or Canada and beneficial trade arrangements with other suppliers sucli as Argentine, are temporary expedients which give her time to recover from some of the economic strains of war—but these are not permanent solutions to nei troubles. "Britain's foreign debts probably exceed very considerably her remaining foreign assets—some of which have been mortgaged and some destroyed by war causes. It has been estimated officially that Britain must now increase her exports to a figure 75 per cent, in volume above the prewar level if she is to balance her overseas payments. “She has to do this despite the loss of capital assets at home—the damage or destruction of factoiies, house, transport facilities and public utilities.. In spite, too, ot the deatli or disablement of many of her best sons and, for the present at least, the absence on military service abroad of perhaps a million of her most active men. Added to all this,is the financial burden of Great Britain's part in the occupation and control of Germanny—a burde of something like eighty million pounds per annum. It is little wonder that the Government has to ask for a renewed effort from the war-tired British people.’’