EMPIRE TRADE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5469, 2 September 1929, Page 3

EMPIRE TRADE.

GREAT ADVANCE MADE; A YEAR’S SUMMARY. Remarkable evidence of how trade within the Empire has developed is . contained in the third annual report rof the Empire Marketing Board. “The newness of many of the great exporting industries of foodstuffs and raw materials in the oversea Empire is not,” states the report, “perhaps, quite adequately appreciated. ■ Every one of the dominions ar d m?.ny of the Colonies have advanced within , the last fifty years from a relatively * modest position into that of important contributors to and purchasers in the great markets of the world. There has been an extraordinary development of the Empire’s resources even since the beginning of the present century. ■ “A survey confined ohly to the leading exports shows that Australia's shipments of wool have risen in this period from slightly over 500 million pounds to about 800 million pounds, and her exports of wheat from half-a-million tons to two million. Canada’s wheat exports have grown from about a quarter of a million tons to approximately seven million tons, and her exports of newsprint from next to nothing to two million tons. New Zealand’s principal exports are wool and dairy produce ; the first has gone up from under 150 million to over 200 million pounds, and butter from less than a quarter of a million pounds, : and cheese from 100,000 cwt to nearly one and a-I'.alf million hundredweight in each case. In the union of South Africa shipments of wool have risen from 90 to 260 million pounds. Newfoundland has developed since the beginning of the century an export trade in paper to the annual value of £2,500,000. India, which can-

not, of course, be compared with the Dominions for newness, nevertheless shows a similar advance. Exports of nearly all her numerous products have shown progress in the present century. Raw cotton,' her main export, has increased from 400 million to nearly 1500 million pounds , last year, and tea from 190 million pounds to 360 million pounds. In the Coloniies an ev<m mure marked development has occurred. Cocoa exports, for instance, have risen from less than half a million to 110 million pounds in Nigeria, and from less than one and a quarter million to 490 million pounds in the Gold Coast. Exports of rubber from British Malaya have grown from nothing to about 370,000 tons, although some part of ■ the I'ubber exported has its origin outside.Brilish territory. Tea from Ceyjomii&s gone froiii 140 million to 228 inillibn pounds, rubber from 73cwt to one and a quarter million cwt, and copra from less than lialf a million to two million cwt. Bananas from Jamaica (8i million to 17 million bunches last year) may be quoted as a further instance.

Range of Empire Supplies. “The development of the natural resources of the oversea Empire is thus being carried out with steady effectiveness. The significance of this to people in the United Kingdom may be seen more vividly perhaps, from another angle. The range of Empire products available in this country is year by year spreading. A revolution in Empire supplies has happened now barely middle-aged. Memories within the lifetime of those who are are short in such matters, and this revolution has hardly been noticed by the general public which has been so considerably affected by it. An article, not to be found ,ih the land yesterday, appears as a curiosity and a luxury in a limited number of shops to-day, and comes down within reach of everybody to-morrow. But its former rarity is quickly forgotten and the new contribution to the variety of diet (and often also to health) is accepted without curiosity. -That this should be so is natural. The additions made and being made by the dominions and colonies to our supplies deserve, however, to be..emphasised in any consideration Of the progress of. Empire marketing. “Two . generations ago the United Kingdom derived only a very limited , range of its requirements from oversea parts of the Empire. The fiftieth anniversary of the first shipment of frozen meat from Australia will take place towards the end cf this year, while New .Zealand’s meat trade only began in the ‘eighties. Fifty years ago only small quantities of butter and cheese came from tke southern Dominions , the tea industry of Ceylon was no more than a few years old : Canada has not yet began to export apples, and no pears, plums, grapes, or peaches from South Africa and no apples or pears from Australia had reached this country. Rubber from Malaya, bananas from Jamaica and cocoa from West: .Africa were equally unknown. A quarter of a century later, in 1904. these products had all appeared on the United Kingdom market, some of them, such as frozen meat and dairy produce, had become firmly established, others were in their infancy. But there were still hardly any Australian currants or raisins, no New Zealand apples or pears, no South African oranges or grapefruit, and no Kenya coffee. Year by year the gaps were filled up. But as recently as the end of the war were no eggs frcm ti e southern Dominions and scarcely any home-produced beet sugar or canned fruits. In the last two on three years cigarettes made from Rhodesian tobacco have become familiar in our shops, cigarettes from Cyprus and, Mauritius have been obtainable, and canned fruit from Fiji, chillel salmon from Newfoundland, and grapes from Palestine have, for the first time, been shipped to this country. Nor has this steady spreading of the range of Empire supflies ceased. New expe’ iments in nroduc- ! tion are constantly reported and experimental consignments from many • and scattered parts of the Empire give promise of an expansion >n the future not less notable than that m the past.

Recent Records. High record shipments cf various Empire grown foodstuffs have been achieved in this same brief period jf two years. Australia!', sultanas and raisins imported in 1927 were 160,000 cwt. greater than in any previous season, while Australian wine more than doubled its previous highest figure. Severe frosts towards the end of 1927 lowered these imports in 1928, but Australian apples, pears, and canned fruit all made records. Imports of frozen lamb, frozen p<>rk and cheese from New Zealand in 1927 reached higher points than ever before, but in the cases of the first tw? surpassed in 1928, while butter and cheese came respectively within two and three and a-half per cent, of the record, and apples and pears both established records. Shipments of oranges, grapefruit, peaches, grapes and wine from the Union of South Africa were all higher in 1927 than ever before. In 1928 grapes, oranges and grapefruit declined slightly, but were larger than in any year before 1927, while nears, raw sugar and wine all made records. Wheat and tobacco from Canada, coffee from East Africa, and tobacco from Rhodesia are other commodities shipped to this country in 1928 in greater quantities than in anv earlier year. “Such figures suggest that the marketing of Empire produce is being actively pursued in this country. Many agents, some of them outside human control (the weather, for instance) have intervened. But one conclusion may safely be drawn. The tide of Empire trade is flowing, strongly. The Dominions and Colonies are able to supply more and more of the needs of the United Kingdom and, in return, the United Kingdom is finding in the oversea Empire a growing demand for British goods. Already, with many of the Dominions and Colonies only on the threshold of their economic manhood, the oversea Empire, while it comprises only one quarter of the world’s surface and population, absorbs nearly half the exxports of the United Kingdom.

“The Empire Marketing Board has found in this active, stirring world of Imperial trade many new objectives in the last year towards the attainment of which its funds might properly and usefully be employed. It is naturally best known to the public through its publicity work, particulars of which are given in the body of the report. But its other activities have been no less vigorously pursued. “These, as a whole, may be defined as the making possible of an Empirewide effort in scientific co-operation. Such hopeful developments of the last year as the establishment of eight new Imperial scientific bureaux, pointly financed by the Governments uf the Empire, and the appointment of the Colonial Advisory Council of Agriculture and Animal Health show how strongly the'tide is flowing in favour of co-operation. Scientists and economists can between them offer four main contributions towards the furtherance of Empire marketing. First, they can help to develop to the full the at present barely tapped natural resources of the Empire. Secondly, they can help to render production as economical as possible by reducing waste in the fieldj in transit, and in store. Thirdly, they can help to ensure that regularity of supply and uniformity of quality, which are two essentials of progressive modern marketing. Lastly, they can provide knowledge, on the one hand, of crop prospect and general conditions in any producing industry anti, on the other hand, of .he special demands and preferences of the consuming public and of the traders through whom the public is reached. All the board’s expenditure on research and on economic investigation serve one or more of these ends. “It is essential in such work to take, long views ; the prizes at stake are tremendous and, while the trend of trade- cannot be ehanged in a day, there is no discoverable limit to the rewards that may fall to wisely directed research and well planned economic organisation. Certainly no industry that seeks to hold its own and still more to advance under the prevailing conditions of world competition .dare turn its back on the scientist of the economist.

“In. conclusion, it need only be added that the board has been encouraged by the evidence it has received from official arid from commercial sources that its work is considered useful by those who may be termed its clients, that is, by the producers of the Empire at home and overseas.”