American Imports

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20078, 26 October 1939, Page 14

American Imports

Sir. -The benzine restrictions are to be lifted at the end of November and Mr. Nash has expressed his regrets for the inconvenience caused to the people of New Zealand through his temporary measure. So the restriction was not a war measure, as we were given to understand, but in all probability a financial one. and since the benzine stream is once more to pom across Ihe Pacific in undiminishod volume il is evident that the finanebii

obstruction which was damming it. How has been cleared away. One wonders how. For, since our sales to America are practically nil and our purchases from her in benzine, ears, radios, cinema films —not. to mention Government importations of bulldozers. scoops and tractors in apparently unlimited numbers—must run into many millions, it is clear that these imports must be paid for in sterling.

But how is this possible seeing that our currency is all but valueless beyond our shores? If as a result of Mr. Nash's restrictions on the importation of goods from Home funds ,in London had been built up. one might have concluded that these American purchases were being financed through. London, but that cannot be the case since Mr. Nash, in announcing the removal of the restriction on benzine, stated that as London funds were stil! diminishing the imports from Home would have to be more stringently curtailed. Could anything be more Gilbertian? To remove an import restriction from a country which purchases none of our produce whilst increasing those on another on whom we are almost entirely- dependent for the sale of our commodities and without whose market New ' Zealand would in very truth-become what the German broadcast described it. as

"two bankrupt iittle islands in the South Pacific.” What is the answer to the riddle? In many an able article your leader writer has dealt with the import regulations and finance as applied to England. If he were to write one on the same lines ns applied to American imports, I feci sure that it would be read with interest by many of vour subscribers. PUZZLED.