The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1926. TRADE WITHIN THE EMPIRE.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1926. TRADE WITHIN THE EMPIRE.

New Zealand Ims been given a very good advertisement by the London “Daily Mail” arising out of the patriotism of the Auckland Power Board which accepted the tender of a British firm tin" supplies though there was a lower tender front a German firm. Auckland lived up to the trade slogan : “Buy British goods and be Proud of it.” The occasion supplied a text for the great London daily to decant on trade preference within the Empire. It went on to say: “The day probably is not far distant when an adequate preferential custom tariff will he imposed on Britain’s ‘imports in return for generous treatment which the. Dominions for more than a generation have accorded to British goods. On business grounds there is every possible reason for buying Ifrom New Zealand in. preference to America. Nor can we ever forget the prompt, noble aid the Dominions in the danger •honij gave the Motherland. Sentiment and self-interest alike dictate that Britain should grant a special and marked preference to Empire products.” The oversea trade of New Zealand is of course, the life blood of the country. In 1924, New Zealand exported over fifty-two millions sterling, and of this sum over forty-two millions sterling were shipped to the United Kingdom. Probably not more than five millions sterling value are exported to foreign countries. New Zealand thus trades well within the Empire, so far as exports are concerned. Again, in the matter of imports, Now Zealand looks to the Old Country for the principal supply of goods. Of forty-eight and a-lmlf millions sterling of value received, nearly twentyfive millions sterling were drawn from the United Kingdom. The United States as a result of the motor trade

supplies the Dominion with considerable value in imports, the amount for 1924 being over seven millions and a-half sterling. It will thus he seen that our trade is already well wrapped up with Great Britain. But what is desired and desirable so far as the Dominion trade is concerned, is a stable market for our produce at Home. If that were an accomplished fact we would hear less about ■ the control boards. There has of course been a great advance in the value of exports of Into years. This is due mainly to the enhanced value of the produce. Of our exports, the chief contributor is pastoral produce, and it reached nearly forty-nine millions sterling out of a total of fifty-two millions sterling. This is equal to 94 per cent, of the whole. An assured market at a stable price would mean a great deal to pastoralists in this country, for as was stated yesterday, boom prices are deceptive, and it would, be preferable for steady trading to see prices at normal rates with a good demand for the country’s produce. The publicity ' the London “Daily Mail” gives to the subject of preference at this juncture will give added attraction to the matter when trade preference within the Empire is to be discussed shortly at the Imperial Conference. Mr Coates will have a. special standing because what has happened, in regard to the Auckland incident. is in keeping with the Imperial leanings of New Zealand statesmen for a long; time past. The figures given above show how intimate the trading relations of New Zealand with Great

Britain are, and Mr Coates will be doing but the obvious in seeking 'to continue such intimate trading to the best possible advantage of the Dominion. The reasons for such intimacy are national in every Vvav, for the fate of New Zealand is fully bound up in the destiny of the Empire as a whole. As the London “Daily Mail” remarked, “sentiment and self-interest alike dictate common action” in the matter, and any overtures Great Britain makes are sure to be responded to no less generously by jhe Government of New Zealand.