BRITISH TRADE.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1921, Page 1

BRITISH TRADE.

PKOSJ’EC'T OF K.KCoVKKY. j WELLINGTON, Nov. 24. Sir Philip Proctor, who, during the later years of the war, held the position of Director of Meat Supplies in England was a passenger by the Tahiti. Fie intends paying a short business trip to New Zealand. Seen snbserpient to his arrival by a representative of the “Times”', Sir Phillip said he did not feel so optimistic as others on the immediate prospects of Great Britain recovering her pre-war export trade. There must lirst. he said, be a material fall in the cost of living at Home, and in this of course, was inseparably bound up the standard ol wages paid. The great cost of production was the chief cause of the weakness of the export trade of (treat Britain. In the years before the war. there aas nothing so regular as the shipping between the Pnited Kingdom and the Dominions. Shipping costs then were equally borne bv the outward and homeward ~i, goes : now they were borne cxelu*ivel\ by the cargoes from the Dominion*, and the freight* were perilously high lor the producer* ft may he disagreeable news, he said but. ii' tile New Zealand farmer was to be fully protected in this regard, all those interested in bis produce must

share tlii' burden—tin iso associated 'with sliijimfiit. storage. I reezino. end lot Ik*i’ services. j “Tn place of the present shyness and nervousness in regard to trade we ' want a better tone of confidence and ' stability.” declared Sir Philip Proctor , “Let us net something like the habits j if not th<' prices of the pre-war period of trade. Precautions and responsihili- ■ ties must he shared generally, and it is unfair to expect one class of the community to assume the burden.” j "Has anything further been done ; with the proposed Government line of ’steamers." asked the visitor. When

told there were no new developments, he milled warmly: “The experience of (lovernmut tending during the wartime has < •considerably increased the body of opinion in Oreat. Britain that trading is not one .if the proper functions of the fiorernment. Tt ran trade sneeessf oily with a monopoly hut it eannot enter sueeessfnlly into the international business. Tlie system of administration of Oovernment departments is against sueeess. tor in the eommereial sphere the mail m eontrol of a shipping or other eonrerns is vested with powers which the head of a State roneern eonld not attempt to exercise. The I‘rime Minister of Australia ,-ould. if he wished, furnish the supporters of a State shipping service with figures and fac ts that would disabuse minds of any prospects of ever running it sueeessfnlly in competition with commureially-i-oiidiietod lines-