INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 21752, 21 June 1934, Page 11

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM MR JAMES BEGG’S REVIEW The origin and growth of international trade formed the subject-for an informative address given this morning by Mr James Begg to the participants in the young farmers’ educational and cultural course. In his introductory remarks Mr Begg said that as soon as they learned to walk they began to trade. They began to exchange things with one another, thereby finding an advantage and a satisfaction. Tho whole world was tied up on trade principles, and unfortunately they had got rather tangled in recent years. In fact, it seemed as if they did not understand the system as well as had the people who lived in bygone centuries. The beginnings of the trade system took place when primitive tribes realised that they could get what they wanted more satisfactorily by means of barter than by fighting. There was international trade in the days of the ancient Egyptians,' said the speaker, and later Rome became the main centre, it being at this period that complications began to creep into the system. Therefore there was nothing new in trade problems, although the actual financial complications were not so marked in Homan days as now. Mr Begg traced the spread of international trade to newly-discovered America and the East, and touched on the exchanges which took place as. regards tho products of the different countries. Then, with the aid of a map of the world, he drew the attention of the audience to the shipping routes representing the flow of international trade, stating that the trade of the world grew to an enormous extent and introduced problems such as those caused by the younger countries borrowing money for development and having to increase production. New Zealand was a case in point. Trade moved from country to country, money did not. In prosperous times ships came to New Zealand full of goods and went home full, but last year fifty ships came out here in ballast. That did not seem good trade; it was a complication which had in through the present state of . international finance. . Ho did not know if anybody thoroughly understood international trade to-day, as it became a difficult problem because of complications in finance. All the countries of the-world were seeking a favourable trade balance, which was impossible to attain, because, if one country had a favourable trade balance, another must have an unfavourable balance. Speaking broadly, money could not pass in international trade, for there was not enough cash with which to put the business through on a purely monetary basis. British trade was now only about half of what it was five years ago, having shrunk from 50 per cent, of the world total to about 29 per cent. Ships were tied up in many ports, and the tramp shipping, of which, before the war, there were 10,000,000 tons, had now been reduced to 5.000,000 tons. British shipping was in the nature of an export, the countries paying in goods for the shipping services provided by Britain. One of the dangers of the system was that the people in the Old Country were apt to suffer from unemployment when so many goods which they needed came from overseas countries. Mr Begg touched on the unemployment question as applied to the merchant marine, and said that there seemed little immediate hope of a revival of the old prosperous times. New Zealanders were a well-bred stock, with natural conditions in their favour—factors which made for an extraordinarily well developed country, producing much more than it needed for its own requirements. This ledi to the need for a good export market. After dealing with Japanese trade and tracing the implications that were arising through this and other developments, Mr Begg said the idea that a country could get rich by exporting without importing was utterly false. International trade was being strangled by economic nationalism, which meant that countries were trying to be self-

supporting. It was possible for big countries to be self-supporting, but if they did they would_ have to adopt a lower standard of living. If there had been any country that might have been expected to succeed in this respect it was the United States of America. But it had now been proved that America had failed. The greater the volume of international trade the better off the world would be. Other speakers had stressed the importance of the spiritual side of world affairs, and he agreed that this was important. New Zealand had a great function in providing food for the world. There was a great romance in international trade, and he would like them to understand that, important though the material side of trade was, there was a deeper meaning in it all, which he hoped they would appreciate, (Applause.) After Mr Begg had answered a number of questions he was accorded, op the motion of Mr K. Whiteside (Waipahi), a hearty vote of thanks for his address.