Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1932, Page 4

The interest of outside nations in the Ottawa. Conference was shown in the cable earlier in the week in connection with proposed action by Denmark to counter to some extent the decisions made there. It would 1 appear that observers from Denmark were already in Ottawa before the .delegations arrived from the other Dominions, keenly interested in every move and anxious to learn how Danish trade with Great Britain was likely to be affected. The Mother Country has barn Denmark’s best customer for dairy produce, eggs and bacon, and the Danes could not contemplate serenely the. prospect of having to compete on unequal terms with Australia and New Zealand in the English market. Her trading position had become increasingly .difficult for the once great German market had been almost closojj to her by tariff increases. .Exports to Norway and. Sweden were said to be the lowest for thirty years and a small trade that had been developing with France had ceased. Tariffs, quota restrictions and exchange difficulties, moreover, had excluded Danish products, from Central Europe. The Danish observers in Ottawa made no secret of the fact that they were prepared to discuss the liberal purchase of British coal and textiles in return for an assurance that the British market would remain 1 open to Danish dairy produce. Actually the exports to Great Britain had increased,substantially because of the Irish difficulty. The Ottawa decisions would obviously come as a great disappointment to the Danes, and they, might very well regard the threat to jffieir export trade as being sufficiently serious to compel a review of the national policy. There wil] be interest shown in many countries over the proposed trade movements, especially as to how it will affect the welfare of the business of the Dominions under the agreements come to at the recent conference.