THE TRADE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2702, 23 February 1916, Page 3

THE TRADE WAR

PREPARATIONS IN BRITAIN

TO BEAT OUT THE GERMANS

WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT

Tho story of how tho British Government has been helping the British manufacturer to win back his lost trade was told yesterday by the Trade Commissioner in an address to the New Zealand Club. Mr. Dalton, 'is an officer of the Board of Trade, has been very actively associated with this work iu England since the war began. "The Board of Trade early realised Ihe eiiormous possibility which the war presented of capturing German trade," said Mr. Dalton. "I remember a conference at the board at which it was decided that we should start this war on German trade at 6nce. Oue remark made at tho conference was that tho economic war is just as important as the actual war. The Board of Trade immediately decided that it must take some stops to inform British, manufacturers of the exact extent of German trade, and enable them to recover some Df the trade which they had lost. "We Btarted in at once by producing a series of .what we called 'Bulletins.' I produced the first 50 of tliem myself. Each 'of these bulletins referred to certain specified trades, and contained exact statements about German trade in those articles, with'general information about the countries in which the trade was done. Two of these bulletins were issued each day. Each one consisted of from 28 to 50 pages of print, and two of them were issued each day, until wo had issued something like 120. If any of you know anything ,about newspaper production you -vfil know what that means. Thousands of these bulletins were scattered over the country. Reports were collected by cablegram from all' centres of the world as to the financial conditions in the various markets of the world, 50 that the manufacturers could know what tlie.v would be doing if they attempted to trade- -What was the result? No 6ooner had four of these bulletins gone out than tho ■ place which was our office had to be structurallj' altered to get the manufacturers into it at all. (Applause.) The office staff of my section of the Board of Trade increased in one day from. 50 to 250. (Applause.) Three buildings outside of my olfico were taken and we started in to worn. Series of Exhibitions. "The next step was to collect the actual goods themselves, and to show them to manufacturers. We started in to do that. It was a terrible business. The goods were there all right in the wholesale houses. All we had to do was to get them. Wo decided to hold an exhibition in ten days' time. Wo had an exhibition, of toys;. There were three of lis, and we collected in seven days 4000 samples. We carried! a lot of tliem ourselves to the exhibition room, and there arranged them 011 counters. Then" we Bent our invitations to manufacturers. We hoped our exhibition would be com-' plots in ton days' time, it was complete. The manufacturers can:o. We found out from them tho chief difficulties the trado was meeting with —the lack of certain goods—and before , the exhibition was dosed we had found manufacturers to, produce the articles required. '(Applause.) Within three months we hold some fourteen or sixteen exhibitions of this kind for 1 different trades. Every exhibition was open for two days, and when it wa6 over the exhibits were packed up and sent back to.;the people froni whom we had borrowed them. We printed a list of the manufacturers, and of the manufactured articles we had shown, and then started in on the next exhibition. We were packers, exhibition exports, printers, editors—we wero everything under the 6uh. But we got these exhibitions through before the goods went off the market, and after three months there was not a single article we could find that wo could have got for exhibition. At every exhibition we collected the various manufacturers interested in the trade, and also the shipping firms interested, and millions of pounds' worth of orders wero taken in that exhibition room, which was in a Government building- " . A Big Show. "One result of the Exhibition was that manufacturers persistently clamoured for a general exhibition of British manufactures. We had to accede to their request, and on February 8 we set out to organise this trade exhibition. , On May 20, three months after-

wards, the exhibition was opened. Six hundred manufacturers exhibited, and we had some scores of thousands of buyers from all over the world. You can have no conception of tile, amount of worlc entailed in the preparation' of such an exhibition. It was the most

successful trade exhibition ever held in England. . . . At first I am'prepared to admit that we had to drag the manufacturers in. At first we had only twenty applications for ■ spacc. "Wo started out all over tho country, and before we had finished there was not a square inch of space unoccupied, and we could havo filled as much again. . . . And I want to say that you have no idea what England can make. The most extraordinary thing I found among the buyers was that they hadn't any idea they could get the articles in England. Why? Because they had previously gono to Leipsic for them. Every year from America, from England, from Australia, from New Zealand, they had gone to Lcipsie. But wo arc going to get those fellows in England from now on. (Applause.) Greater Than Ever. "The point I want to make is that both tho Government and manufacturers in England are determined that when tho war is over Britain is going to bo the greatest commercial power the world has ever seen, and there will not tho slight-est _ possibility of Germany coming back into our markets, as she has done before." (Applause.)