BRITISH INDUSTRIES

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1930, Page 3

BRITISH INDUSTRIES

MARKET'S IN THE EMPIRE

Af.\INSTAY OF NATION

How Great Britain’s existence depends upon the development of hei overseas trade is explained tby Professor A. J. Sargent, ALA., of the London School of Economics, in an analysis of British industries and ■Empire markets which he has prepared for the Empire Marketing Board. “Great Britain lives, and must for the most part continue- to live by the sale of her manufactured products to oversea.? court tries,” says Professor Sargent. “Apart from coal and some iron ore, and the output of her quarries and brickfields, the only native resources of any magnitude are to be found in agriculture; yet, of the nineteen million people in England, Scotland and AVales, recorded in 1921 as employed in industry of some kind, rather less than seven per cent are assigned to agriculture. Agriculture might, under different conditions, employ more, but there are physical as well as economic limits to such increase, and the fact remains that Great Britain can no more feed its present population from native resources than a modern city can support itself from the produce of fields and market gardens within its boundaries

GIGANTIC URBAN AREA

“Great Britain is merely a gigantic urban area, dependent for its very existence on the supply of food and raw materials from without, and these are purchased largely by the products of its manufacturing industries. The population of Great Britain lias grown up under this special system; it can. continue to exist, at its present size and with its existing standard of life, only hv the pei-pet-uat ion of the conditions of its growth. Great Britain depends, aiul must depend. for its existence on the continued export of manufactures ; but it has no mononoly of production, and other countries also export in competition.” Professor Sargent '.points out that in 1891 the purchasing power of the Emnire ivas represented by about 4”8 million people; in, 1901, by 345 million; in 1911, hv 375 million. In 1997 it was not far short of 400 million. This increase, large as it was. he states, failed to. give a true idea of the expansion of the market. It was fend that the growth in exports from Great Britain to the Empire was more rapid than the growth of population in the Empire. AVhether. one looked at trade per head ox, markets as a whole the conclusion was the same—the -Empire had steadily outstripped Europe as a consumer of British manufactures. “If we estimate in terms of population, we find that in 1899 tlie aver age Australian and New Zealander bought of 'British manufacturers over three -times ns much as the average -South American; in 1901 over four times as much; while in 192< the amount has risen to over five times,” Professor Sargent continues. “On either basis of estimate the Australian and New Zealand market lias become relatively more valuable in recent years.”