Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1901. DECLINE OF BRITISH TRADE?

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 April 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1901. DECLINE OF BRITISH TRADE?

The cry that Britain’s commerce is

dying has no foundation in fact. Today her trade is twice that of the United States and greater than that of Germany, France and Russia combined. And yet some journals declare that Britain is fast being supplanted, Ihe Pall Mall Gazette, in a recent issue, says“ The colonies ought to be a sure market for us, but they are not. If Lord Salisbury wishes to get closer to actual facts, let him glance at the ‘ Engineering Magazine’ recently issued. He will there see some excellent illustrations of the engines built for the Wellington and Manawatu Railway of New Zealand. In some British foundry? No, in the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia. Yet recourse had previously been made to a leading British firm. The results were that the colony had to wait two years for full delivery of locomotives, that the first two delivered were found to be of excessive weight, and that after a prolonged correspondence twenty engines had to be altered in various ways to enable them to run over New Zealand bridges. It is the old story ; the British producer will not condescend to study the consumer. So long as this dull confidence in past ascendency continues, so long are we in danger of that ‘ descent into obscurity ’ on which Lord Salisbury jests.” This opinion of the Gazette is contradicted by other authorities who afiirm that to cope with the “ spurt ” of the past two years would require double the appliances now available; and that, as this high pressure cannot continue, it would be foolish to get such extra plant, when it would almost to a certainty be put on one side in a few months time. The trade of Britain was never better than it is at present. It is merely the extra volume, caused by the South African and Chinese wars, that Britain cannot take that goes to other countries. If there was any chance of that extra volume becoming permanent, British manufacturers would speedily be in a position to cope with it.