THE SONG OF THE OVER SEAS TRADE.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 April 1920, Page 4

THE SONG OF THE OVER SEAS TRADE.

(By Milton Hayes in the Daily Mail). Merchandise! Merchandise !—Tortoiseshell, Spices, Carpets and Indigo—sent o’er the high seas; Motlier-o’-Pearl from the Solomon Isles— Brought by a brigantine ten thousand miles— Rubber from Zanzibar, Tea from Nang-Po, j Copra, from liayti, and Wine from Bordeaux; Ships with top-gallants and royals unfurled Are bringing in freights from the ends of the world — Crazy, old wind-jammers, manned by

| Malays, i With rat-ridden bulkheads and slackj ened old stays, . Reeking of bilge and of paint and of I pitch— That’s how your fat city merchant grows rich — And tramps heavy laden, and liners untold Will lease a new life to a nation grown old. Merchandise! -Merchandise! England was made By her Men and her Ships and her Overseas Trade. Widen your harbours, your docks, and your quays, j Hazard your wares 011 the seven wide | 0 1 seas, j Run out your railways and hew out your ( coal, For only by trade can a country keep whole. Feed up your furnaces, fashion your steel, Stick to your bargains and pay on the deal; Rich is your birthright and well you’ll be paid If you keep in good faith with your Over-sens Trade.

Learn your geography—work out your sums, Build up your commerce and pull down your slums; Sail on a Plimsoll that marks a full hold: Your Over-seas Trade means a harvest of gold. Bring in tlie palm-oil and pepper you’ve bought, Biut send out teu times the amount you import: Trade your inventions, your labour and sweat: Your Over-seas Traffic will keep you from debt. Hark to the song of the shuttle and loom “Keep up your commerce or crawl to your tomb!” Study, new methods and open new lines, Keep up your factories, foundries, and mines; Think of what Drake did—and Raleigh and Howe, And waste not their labours by slacking it now; Work is life’s currency—earn wlvat you’re worth, And send out your ships to the ends of the earth.

Deep-bosomed Mothers with widefashioned. hips Will hear ye good sons for the building of ships— Good sons for your ships and good ships for your trade: That’s how the Peaoe-of-tho-World will he made!

So send out your strong to the forests untrod, Work for yourselves and your neighbours and God, Keep this good England the Home-of-tlie-Free. With Merchandise, Men, and good ships on the. sea. Merchandise! -Merchandise! Good honest Merchandise! Merchandise, Men, and good ships on the sea.