TRADE FACTS AND FIGURES

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17748, 9 March 1927, Page 4

TRADE FACTS AND FIGURES

» .• . i ! The ext'ent to" which Empire pre- 1 « ference is already helping the i | Mother Country was brought out in \ j very striking fashion at the recentj j Imperial Conference by Sir P. Cun- S I liffe-Lister who pointed out that ! | whepeas, in 1913, only one quarter i | 9f thb imports to' Great Britain ! j pame from Empire tradiiig, the fig1- ! | ures for the half-year ending on i June 30th last showed that one-third ; 1 ofi the imports came from the Em- ! ; pire, Between 1924-25 British ex- 1 ; ports to foreign countries declined i ; from £46$, 000,009 to £444,000,000: c 2 British exports to the Empire in- • ; creased from £284,000,000 'to £288,- j • 000,000. British preference in sugar, j ' j tobacco, wine and raisins has con- 1 ; j sid'erably stimulated trade between j " Great Britain anr? thp, TTnmininnc i

; Whereas, before the war, the sugar I • imports into Britain from the Em- 1 ; pire were less than 7 per cent. of j 1 c the total, to-day nearly a quarter } • ,• of the British total consumption is ] 1 Empire sugar. Empire supplies of j i tobacco to Britain have increased I ■ i from one and a-quarter per cent. to • 1 ) eleven per cent.; the preference j 5 given to Empire wines has in- j 1 s creased the consumption of the lat- i 1 i ter hy one-third, and Empire im- J j. ports of raisins into Britain have 1 j "increased from two and a-halfi to ( : thirty-six and a-half per cent. 'of 1 j British consumption. , These are the 1 ; only lines upon which the Mother ]

; Country is extending preference to } Dominion products, the duties ; levi'&di on them being less than the | duties charged on similar products i from foreign countries. It is worthy | of note that the Dominions have I given preference to over £100,0)00,i 000 of British exports. In Australia on nine-tenths of the British goads imported preference is given | on an average value of a little over ! twelve per cent. On two-fifths of [ the British goods imported into Australia, no duty is levied,, and Mr Bruce siated at the Imperial Conference that £26,000,000 of British manufactures go into Australia in a year, duty free, the tariff on foreigh goods averaging twelve and a-half per cent. Th6 preference on British goods given by New Zealand averages flfteen per cent., ihe actual cash value of such preference in 1925 being estimated at £3,500,000. As the tariff stands at present, only 7.7 per cent. of Empire gocds are subpect to the same rates cf duty as foreign goods. Ausralian trade with the Mother Country was worth as much in the year ended March, 1926, as the trade of France, Belgium, Spain and Portu- j gal put together, the four countries ] with a total population of 74 mil- ; lions huying British goods to the J value of £60, 900', 000 while Australia j with a population ofi only six mil- ! lions, hought goods to the same «' value, the increase in the money j value of British exports being 76 i per cent. of the goods sent to Australia, against 14 per cent. for the countries named. A further fact of interest ciisclosed by Sir Robert Horne (also speaking in London) shows thaf Australia and New Zealand, with a conVbined population oi seven and a-half millions, took from Great Britain one and a-half times as much as all the twenty millions of citizens in the United States of America. > — - i