Reciprocal Trade

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 1, 16 January 1937, Page 5

Reciprocal Trade

-Press Assn.

MR NASH EXPLAINS System Should be Wider Than The Empire ADDRESS IN LONDON

(Br TeJegraph-

— Copyright.)

(Beceived 16, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 15. The Hon. W. Nash, New Zealand Minister of Finance, in speaking at a luncheon givea by the London Ohamher of Commerce said that the relationship hetween England and New Zealand had heen an illustration of the advantages of a system closely approximating free trade and had enahled New Zealanders to enjoy the benefits of large-scale industry and the ITnited Kingdom and . British people to take advantage of cheaper food from New Zealand. "New Zealand," he said, "offers British manufacturers not only the lowest tariff in the Empire but better tnading f acilities than any country in the world. "I feel that the free-trade philsophy is theoretically the most perfect trade philosophy, but we need a more perfect world in order to carry it out. Free trade between England and New Zealand would not be enough if the rest of the world were unwilling to adopt the same poliey. "New Zealand is produeing more and more from its farm lands, but the number of persons employed on farms is not inereasing. Consequently, if tbe poliey of the past generation continues and New Zealand confines its eeonomy to its agrieultural and pastoral resouTees, there will not be work for the coming generation; in other words, aeceptance of the free-trade poliey by New Zealand will result in a surplus of young people. "The New Zealand Government's main objective is betterment of the standard of living. Production has only ineidentally served the needs of consumers. Some who should have been consumers bave gone"without. This state of affairs need not continue. The New Zealand Government is endeavouring to guide production in order to serve the highest ends of consumption. "We are of the opinion that reciprocal trade agreements whieh provide a method of expanding consumption and international trade must be followed by any Government embarking upon planned eeonomy. "The greatest difficulty regarding Teciprocal agreements," Mr Nash added, ' 1 is that the agreement of other countries is required in order to make them effective, but they have a better chance of success than the free-trade basis. The reciprocal system should be wider than the Empire; it should inplude the sterling group — namely, France, Belgium, Bussia, Holland and the United States. "There is nothing doetrinaire about New Zealand 'a* poliey. I believe that institutions may be moulded and altered and that np economic system must 'remain immutable, I also Tecognise that it would require all our energy in order to bttild a type of eeonomy which would serve the ends of the greatest good for the greatest number."