EMPIRE TRADE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 310, 17 October 1929, Page 8

EMPIRE TRADE.

FOODSTUFFS FOR BRITAIN.

(From the Empire Marketing Board’s Report.) The remarkable increase which has token place in trade within the Empire in a very brief period is worth considering, for it directly affects the work of the Empire Marketing Board, an organisation created especially to foster trade within the Empire. The newness of many of the great exporting industries of foodstuffs and raw materials in the oversea empire is not, perhaps, adequately appreciated. Every one of the dominions and many | 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

ceutuijr A survey confined only to the leading exports shows that Australia’s shipments of wool have risen in this period from slightly over 500,000,000 lbs, and her exports of wheat from 500,000 tons to 2,000,000 tons. Canada’s wheat exports have grown from about 250,000 tons to approximately 7,000,000 tons, and her exports of newsprint from next to nothing to 2,000,000 tons. New Zealand’s principal exports are wool and dairy produce; the first has gone up from below 150,000,000 lbs to over 200,000,000 lbs, and butter from less than 250,000 lbs and cheese from 100,000 rwt to nearly 1,500 000 cwt in each case. In the Union of South Africa shipments of wool have risen from 90,000,000 to 260,00^*,000 lbs. Newfoundland has developed sir ce the beginning of the century an export trade in paper to the annual value of £2,500,000. India, which cannot, 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 400,000,000 lbs to nearly 1,500,000.000

lbs last year, and tea from 190,000,000 lbs to 360,000,000 lbs.

In the solonies an even more not- j able development has occurred. Cocoa exports, lor instance, have risen from less than 500,000 lbs to 110,000,000 | lbs in Nigeria, and from less than 1 1,250,000 lbs to 490,000,000 lbs in the Gold Coast. Exports of rubber from British Malaya have grown from nothing to about 370,000 tons, although some part of the rubber exported has its origin outside British territory. Tea from Ceylon has increased from 1 140,000,000 lbs to 228,000,000 lbs, rubber from 73 cwt to 1,250,000 cwt, and , copra from less than 250,000 cwt to j

2,000,000 cwt. Bananas from Jamai- j ca (8,250,000 bushels to 17,000,000 bushels last year) may be quoted as [ a further instance. The development of the natural re- f sources of the overseas 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 within the life-time of those who are now barely middle-aged. Memories are short in such matters, and this revolution has hardly been noticed b> the general public, which has been so considerably affected by it. An article, not to t2 found in the land yesterday, appears as a curiosity and a luxury in a limited number of shops to-day, and comes down within reach of all 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 Britain’s 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 overseas parts of the Empire. The fiftieth

anniversary of the first shipment of frozen meat from Australia will take place towards the end of this year, while New Zealand’s meat trade began only in the eighties. Fifty years

ago only small quantities of butter and cheese were sent from the southern dominions; the tea industry of Ceylon was no more than a few years old; Canada had not yet begun to export apples, and no pears, plums,grapes, or peaches from South Africa, and no apples or pears from Australia had reached the Home market. Rubber from Malaya, bananas from Jamaica, and cocoa from West Afn 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; but others j were in their infancy. There werestill hardly any Australian currantsor raisins, no ‘New Zealand apples or

1 pears, no South African oranges cr [ grapefruit, and no Kenya coffee. Year by year the gaps were filled. But as recently as the end of the war there were no eggs from the southern dominions and scarcely any home-produced beet sugar or canned fruits. In the last two or three years cigarettes made from Rhodesian tobacco have | become familiar in English shops, cigarettes from Cyprus and Mauritius have been obtainable, and canned 1 fruit from Fiji, cl.illed salmon from Newfoundland, and grapes from Palestine have, for the lint time, been shipped to the British market. Nor has this steady spreading of the range of Empire supplies ceased. New experiments in production are constantly reported, and experimental consignments from many and scattered parts of the Empire give promise of an expansion in the future not less notable than in the past.