BRITISH TRADE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 December 1929, Page 7

BRITISH TRADE

VALUE OF EMPIRE ALA IMvET. AIR PA!SfL’*S INTERESTING REVIEW. WELLINGTON. December 19. “1 suppose that anyone who talks about trade at Heme and makes any sort of survey of inter-imperial relations, particularly if he comes from my own country, nearly always starts from the consid'Tation that although we in Great Britain do not live to oat—.far from, it— wo must eat if wo are going to live, and as the whole world knows now we do not produce, enough food for our 45 or so millions of people. We are, in fact, woefully short in some of our major foodstuffs. To take those of more immediate interest to New Zealand, we produce only one-seventh of the nutter we eat, ono-fifth of the cheese, and one-fourth of the pig products. We are, therefore, faced with the necessity of im-p'-rting large quantities of foodstuffs in feeding ourselves.” With these words Air L. A. Paish, 0.8. E., his Majesty’s Trade Commissioner to New Zealand, prefaced his address as chief guest at the No" Zealand Club luncheon to-day.

FOOD PROBLEM

“Wo should, if cut off from supplies of food from outside, perish in a lew short weeks, and that in spite of the fact that we are a great agricultural country,” added Mr 'Paish. “People abroad sometimes fail to realise, however, what large amounts of agricultural produce are supplied from the Home grower, and sometimes it is held up as a. reproach to us that we do not do more to feed ourselves. The balance of our foodstuffs have, of course, to he imported. Those imports have to be {paid for, and we can pay for them only by our exports, visible and invisible. We have to import from abroad every pound of cotton, rubber, jute, and oilseeds, 90 per cent, of our wool, large supplies of iron ore, and a thousand and one other articles of which wo have inadequate supplies at Home, and these imports of raw materials also necessarily have to be paid for by more and more exports, visible and invisible. Unless there is t'o be a vast economic and social upheaval at Home there must necessarily he large imports of foodstuffs and raw materials for our industries.